Is Turkey imploding?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2018
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Turkey's currency plummeted to its lowest level ever against the US dollar. The lira's steady descent this year was accelerated by the imposition of increased tariffs on steel and aluminium by the United States.
President Trump, it seems, is personally angered by the continued detention in Turkey of an American pastor, who's been held for nearly two years on suspicion of spying.
The currency crisis has focussed attention on Turkey more broadly: on economic difficulties with deep roots, on the leadership of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has accumulated unprecedented power, and on Turkey's troubled relationships with many of its traditional allies.
Mr Erdogan says he may now need to look for new friends - a potentially troubling prospect for other NATO members.
David Aaronovitch asks how deep is the Turkish crisis?
CONTRIBUTORS
Soner Çağaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of The New Sultan - a biography of President Erdogan.
Dr Mina Toksoz, an emerging markets and country risk consultant at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House
Dr. Amanda Sloat, Brookings Institution, Washington DC and former deputy assistant secretary for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Affairs at the US State Department
Dr Ziya Meral, a specialist on Turkey and a fellow at the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. The idea is that you and I get briefed together on the important questions of the day by people who know what they're talking about. |
| 0:09.7 | If it works for you or if it doesn't, please let us know what you think by writing a review or rating us on iTunes or your podcast provider. |
| 0:19.1 | Turkey has been in the headlines in the last few days. |
| 0:21.6 | A very public row with the United States |
| 0:23.6 | has exposed its economic frailty. |
| 0:26.4 | So this week we're asking |
| 0:27.5 | how significant this crisis is. |
| 0:34.3 | Yastings in our last thing dollars there are. If you have dollars under your pillow, take them out. If you have dollars under your pillow, take them out. If you have euros, take them out. If you have gold, take it out. I'm talking to those who have them. Immediately give them to the banks and convert them into Turkish lira. |
| 0:56.5 | And by doing this, we can fight this war of independence and for the future. |
| 1:01.5 | That was Turkish President Rejet Tiberdwan this week, |
| 1:04.9 | rather dramatically trying to halt a currency crisis for the Turkish lira, |
| 1:09.3 | which has lost more than 30% of its value against |
| 1:11.8 | the dollar this year. What's gone wrong for Turkey, which not so long ago was a fast growth |
| 1:17.5 | economy? Can it be solved by raiding the mattress? And politically, if President Erdogan |
| 1:23.4 | thinks he's fighting a war of independence and a war for the future, who is he fighting |
| 1:27.4 | against? And what does it mean for the future, who is he fighting against? |
| 1:28.6 | And what does it mean for the rest of us? |
| 1:30.7 | Step into the briefing room and we'll find out. |
| 1:37.1 | First, we're going to hear a little about the man himself, because few global leaders today, it seems, |
| 1:43.4 | have accumulated as much personal power as President Erdogan. |
| 1:48.0 | Here's Sonair Chaptai, whose biography of the president is entitled The New Sultan. |
| 1:58.4 | Understanding Turkish President Rajip Taipdogan, goes through understanding his upbringing |
... |
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