Word: turkeys
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...Turkey has attracted a lot of attention lately thanks to a series of political crises--from armed forays into neighboring Iraq in pursuit of autonomy-seeking Kurdish militants to an atavistic attempt by Turkish prosecutors to ban the country's own ruling party. The political intrigue has created a speed bump--or maybe a stop sign--for an economy that had been striding with determination toward inclusion in the European Union and recharging its ancient trade links with the Middle East...
...Turkey's economic surge is, moreover, a sign of underlying political progress. The West couldn't hide its nervousness when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected in 2002. The AKP is moderately Islamist, but its economics have turned out to be decidedly liberal. The party has nurtured economic reforms that have tamed inflation, stabilized a jittery currency and entrenched the independence of the country's central bank. Privatization of state-owned properties continues to attract outside investors. Turkey's application to join the E.U. is stalled on objections by France and Germany, among others. But the process...
...Guard secular establishment is now backing a lawsuit aimed at banning the democratically elected AKP, casting a shadow over Turkey's prospects, at least in the short term. The suit seeks to bar the party and its members from political activity for allegedly violating Turkey's constitutional prohibition against mixing politics and religion. The move has rattled markets. After tripling from 2002 through last November, Turkey's stock index has dropped 32%. The global credit crunch has not helped. The ratings agency Standard & Poor's in April cut Turkey's credit rating to negative from stable, citing a fraught political...
...Modern Turkey has looked Westward since its staunchly secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk decreed the separation of mosque and state shortly after World War I. The pro-Western political bent did not immediately translate into liberal economics. Corruption, cronyism and protectionism continued to cloud prospects until the 1980s. Even then, after a period of economic liberalization under reformist Prime Minister Turgut Ozal (a pal of Margaret Thatcher's), the old habits died hard. In 2001, Turkey suffered a full-blown financial crisis in which the Turkish currency lost nearly 50% of its value overnight...
That shock proved to be a wake-up call. Turkey was compelled, as a result, to accept World Bank and International Monetary Fund prescriptions, including fiscal discipline and regulatory changes, that have since paid off handsomely, triggering five years of more than 6% annual growth, single-digit inflation and rising incomes...