Turkish currency, the lira, hit a record low Monday after efforts by the country’s central bank to curb the drop by reducing the amount of foreign currency it holds in its reserves and their efforts to bolster the banking sector failed.
The currency has fallen nearly 30 percent this year already and is currently down 3.8 percent against the U.S. dollar, with $1 buying about 5.277 lira, according to The Wall Street Journal.
After months of decline, the lira fell 2.2 points on Sunday after policymakers in Turkey announced adjustments to the reserve policies of the central bank — CBRT — that were supposed to result in giving the banking sector $2.2 billion in liquidity.
The CBRT claimed it would do this by lowering the “upper limit for the FX maintenance facility within the reserve options mechanism” by 5 percentage points to 40 percent, per a statement on its website.
This helped temporarily, the Financial Times reported, but the lira continued to fall. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Turkey plans to keep purchasing Iranian oil in defiance of American sanctions on the rogue regime, according to the NATO ally’s top diplomat.
“We buy oil from Iran and we purchase it in proper conditions,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday. “What is the other option?”
Cavusoglu’s comments raise the specter of yet another clash between the U.S. and Turkey, which is also in the final stages of an arms deal with Russia that could trigger American sanctions. Turkish officials, in both cases, have dismissed the U.S.’ threat of sanctions to constrain the choices of other countries.
“While we are explaining why we will not obey these sanctions, we have also expressed that we do not find these U.S. sanctions appropriate,” Cavusoglu said Tuesday.
The Trump administration hopes to isolate Iran and deprive the regime of access to international sources of revenue that might be used to finance a nuclear weapons program or regional aggression by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the regime’s terrorist proxies. – READ MORE
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