Page 24 - TURKRptSept19

2.5 Business and consumer confidence surveys
Turkey’s consumer confidence index moved up to 58.3 points in August from 56.5 points in July, data from Turkish Statistical Institute TUIK showed on August 22. In May the index fell to 55.3 points, its lowest level since the data series was started in 2004. A confidence level below 100 reflects a pessimistic outlook. Turkey has experienced a bitter recession since the lira crisis peaked in the summer of last year. In some quarters there is a feeling that the Erdogan administration has forsaken economic restructuring with an eye on the longer view in favour of policy delivery that could deliver short-term growth, possibly with an eye on winning over voters for a snap election that Erdogan could use in an attempt at re-consolidating his power.
2.6 Politics - shorts
“As U.S. policymakers worry about their special relationship with Ankara, Turkey’s president knows it's already dead,” Steven Cook wrote on August 15 in an op-ed entitled “Erdogan Plays Washington Like a Fiddle” for Foreign Policy, adding: “The whole episode is revealing of the rather odd juncture at which the U.S. foreign-policy community finds itself concerning Turkey... some analysts and policymakers desperately want to believe... whatever [Erdogan is] doing is just domestic politics and can be ignored. This inevitably leads to policy prescriptions that border on the absurd... instead of penalizing Turkey as required by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, some policymakers floated the idea of offering Ankara a free trade agreement if the Turkish military did not turn on the S-400. Keep in mind that the recent Turkish threats to invade Syria came at around the same time that the debate about the sanctions act was heating up. Erdogan’s thunder quickly changed the conversation.”
The US offer to sell Raytheon Co’s Patriot missile defence system to Turkey is “off the table,” having expired following Ankara’s decision to accept Russian S-400 defensive systems, a State Department official said on August 22.
Russia and Turkey held urgent talks in July on connecting Turkish companies and lenders to the Russian central bank’s alternative to the SWIFT financial messaging system, Bloomberg wrote on August 21. The two sides reportedly met soon after Ankara risked US sanctions by taking delivery of a Russian S-400 air-defence missile system, despite warnings not to from the Trump administration and Congress. Russia has adapted its financial system in response to international sanctions since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev confirmed the talks took place after details of the meeting emerged from a
24 TURKEY Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com