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Southeast Europe
April 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
Turkey spirits lifted by rosier industrial data and an Oval Office meeting
Akin Nazli in Belgrade
Turkey’s calendar-adjusted industrial production index contracted for a sixth consecutive month in February, data from national statistics office TUIK showed on April 16.
However, the drop of 5.1% y/y was lower than the revised 9.9% y/y contraction recorded for December and the revised 7.4% y/y fall posted for January, driving hopes that Turkey might be pulling out of the recession it fell into at the end of last year.
The rosier data came on the same day that
the Turkish finance minister and son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Berat Albayrak, shared a photo on Twitter showing him in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump, Trump’s
From left, Trump, Mnuchin, Albayrak and Kushner talk Turkey in the Oval Office.
son-in-law and aide Jared Kushner and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
A full readout of the surprise gathering – made pos- sible by Albayrak’s presence in the US capital for the annual spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank and meetings with investors, which flopped – was never going to be available but the most concrete development that appeared to stem from it was comments from Turkish presidential spokes- man Ibrahim Kalin made to reporters in Washing- ton that Nato member Turkey expects Trump to use a waiver to protect it if the US Congress decides to sanction Ankara over a planned purchase of
the Russian S-400 missile defence system.
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Name change at the heart of North Macedonia’s presidential election campaigns
The Prespa agreement, under which the country formerly known as Macedonia was recently renamed to North Macedonia, has become the preeminent issue in the race for the country’s presidency, that has revealed still deep divisions over the so-called “name deal”.
Three candidates entered the race to replace incum- bent head of the state Gjorge Ivanov, who is serving his second mandate and cannot stand for a third term.
Stevo Pendarovski was nominated by the governing coalition and is supported by 30 smaller
political parties from all ethnic communities in the country. His main rival is Gordana Siljanovska- Davkova, a law professor nominated by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party.
Pendarovski leads the latest poll ahead of the first round of the election, but his margin over Siljanovska-Davkova is relatively narrow. 38.3% of those surveyed supported Pendarovski, while 33.2% would vote for Siljanovska-Davkova, the poll conducted by Rating agency showed.
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