With demonstrations in Turkey continuing for a fifth-day and unions now throwing their support behind protesters the Lira weakened against the US Dollar.
At the current Exchange Rate one US Dollar is worth 1.8786 Turkish Lira as of 11:40 am GMT
Although the situation was relatively calm to begin with on Tuesday (compared with the drama played out on Monday) reports later detailed the deployment of hundreds of riot police who were said to have used water cannons and tear gas on protesters. It also emerged that a 22 year old man, Abdullah Comert, died during the demonstrations in Antakya. Exact details of his death are still emerging.
Now the KESK confederation of public-sector workers (made up of roughly 240,000 members) has called for a two-day strike to protest about the government’s ‘fascism’.
The Turkish Lira fell to 1.8803 against the US Dollar
What started out as a simple peaceful protest about preserving Istanbul’s Taksim Square descended into nationwide chaos as the populous make their dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt.
In an attempt to calm the situation Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc issued an apology regarding the police action which sparked the situation. Arinc apologised ‘for the police aggression against our citizens who were involved in the initial protests and acted with environmental concern.’
He also came to the defence of the police: ‘They are doing a hard job. When they are executing their jobs, they may sometimes use extraordinary, even excessive, use of force. But they wait in a passive mode unless something comes from the other side […] I don’t think we owe an apology to those who caused the destruction on the streets and who interfered with people’s freedom.’
The ongoing protests have caused bond yields to rise and the Lira to falter.
Also today Turkey’s central bank relaxed money tightening. Following three days of tightened lending to banks the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey released 1 billion Lira into its daily one-week repo auctions.
Current Turkish Lira (TRY) Exchange Rates
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The Turkish Lira/Pound Sterling Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.3466 <
The Turkish Lira/Euro Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.4072 <
The Turkish Lira/ US Dollar Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.5330 <
The Turkish Lira/Japanese Yen Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 55.1489 >
The Pound Sterling/ Turkish Lira Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 2.8838 >
The Euro/Turkish Lira Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 2.4544 <
The US Dollar/Turkish Lira Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 1.8786 >
The Japanese Yen/Turkish Lira Exchange Rate is currently in the region of: 0.0181 >
(Correct as of 11:40 GMT)
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