Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took oath in parliament for another five-year term, hours before he’s expected to announce his new cabinet.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was among dignitaries who attended Saturday’s inauguration ceremony in Ankara, as was Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Erdogan, who gained 52% of the vote in a runoff election last week, is looking to turn the page on a cost-of-living crisis as the lira sinks to record lows and investors await clarity on the path forward for Turkey’s $900 billion economy. The cabinet, which will be announced by the 69-year-old president later Saturday, is expected to normalize the country’s economic and foreign policies while focusing on trying to wrestle some of its biggest cities from the opposition in local elections next March.
Of most interest to market watchers will be who will lead the president’s new economy team and foreign policies. In a victory speech following the second round of elections on May 28, Erdogan promised a new economic team that has “international credibility.”
Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Erdogan will appoint Mehmet Simsek, a former Merrill Lynch strategist who worked as both a finance minister and deputy prime minister in past Erdogan cabinets, as his new treasury and finance minister. Simsek, 56, is expected to normalize Turkey’s policies after years of unorthodox moves that resulted in runaway inflation and the lira sinking to record lows, said people with knowledge of the matter.
On the diplomatic front, the government in Ankara has also come under pressure from Washington to move faster to ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO before potentially receiving US congressional support for Turkey’s purchase of American-made F-16 fighter jets.
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