Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Ankara’s readiness to refuse dollars and euros in the country’s trade with partners, including Iran.
“We are preparing to carry on trade in national currencies with China, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, which account for the largest volume of bilateral trade. If European countries want to get free from the dollar pressure, we are ready to create a similar system with them,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated during a meeting in Rize, Turkey, Sputnik reported.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish president urged the country’s citizens to sell dollars and euros to support the lira, Turkey’s national currency. The latter has been experiencing a major downfall since US President Donald Trump’s recently announced sanctions.
Speaking about the spat with US President Donald Trump, Erdogan called it a “currency plot”, stating that those who provoke fluctuations in the value of lira “think that they can destroy Turkey.”
The Turkish president noted that Ankara does not intend to tolerate the situation when “the world is declared an economic war, and several countries are pressured by the threat of imposing sanctions”.
Erdogan recalled that “in the world, there is not a single politician and no country that succeeds in pursuing a hostile policy toward Turkey”.
“Anyone who causes suffering to the Turkish people, sooner or later, will pay for it,” he said.
In one of his latest speeches, Erdogan said the recent US policy toward Turkey has “annoyed and upset” Ankara.
The policy refers to a tariff increase recently announced by Trump on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey by 20% and 50%, respectively. This move provoked a sharp fall of the Turkish lira.
This position has been echoed by Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s spokesman, who wrote in the Daily Sabah newspaper that “the United States risks losing Turkey [as an ally]”.
Ankara has denounced the US sanctions and promised to freeze the assets of US justice and interior secretaries in Turkey.
Turkey and Iran’s central banks formally agreed last October to trade in their local currencies. The agreement had been discussed earlier during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Turkey followed by a draft agreement between the governors of the two countries’ central banks.
