President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday called on Turkish banks to open up the “loan taps” to entrepreneurs or face the consequences.
Speaking at his lavish palace in Ankara during a ceremony, Erdoğan threatened Turkish banks, saying, “If the owners in the [banking] sector do not open up the taps of loans for investors, they will face us.”
Erdoğan argued that the economy is one of the biggest weapons used against Turkey. “You know what it means to keep your money in the bank? It means ‘give your money to the owners of the financial institutions and let them become incredibly rich without making any investments’,” Erdoğan said in an attempt to discourage Turks from depositing money in banks.
Erdoğan also claimed that attacks by terrorist organizations are intended to deliver a message on the economy by trying to destroy the country. He said that the “separatist organization” and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) assault Turkey frequently. “Who can deny that the point is to intimidate the consumer and slow down the economy?” Erdoğan said.
Amid an increasing loss of value in the Turkish lira, Erdoğan has been urging citizens not to buy foreign currency.