FATF decision and the crusade against TUSIAD

TURKEY - In Brief 11 Feb 2014 by Atilla Yesilada
FATF decision and the crusade against TUSIAD I wanted to start your business day with two “heads-up's”. First, FATF is meeting today in Paris, with Turkey’s compliance to anti-terror financing legislation being part of the agenda. Secondly, Erdogan’s anger against TUSIAD is picking up speed and venom by the day. While a strike by FATF or Erdogan against TUSIAD is decidedly “tail-risks”, given the fragility of the market sentiment, bad news could have disproportionate impact. See link for one of the few news sources that bothered to cover Turkey’s FATF travails. Turkey had passed legislation to tighten regulations against money laundering and terror-financing, but several recent developments cast doubt on the country’s willingness to enforce those fairly: · Accusations of Halkbank being the conduit of the sanctions busting efforts of Iranian businessman Mr. Babek Zencani and his Turkish accomplice Mr. Reza Sarraf—both currently behind the bars. · Mr. Erdogan’s admission of a close friendship with Mr. Yasin al Kadi, a man high in U. S. terror sponsors list. · Last week's U. S. Treasury report implicating Turkey in funds transfers from Iran and Gulf donors to Syrian al Nusra. I think if the West wishes to seriously hurt Turkey; it could put the country on the black-list, which would have very negative repercussions on Turkish firms trying to raise money abroad. I’m not sure U. S. wants to go that far. Instead the Treasury would probably go after individual suspects to demonstrate the laxity of supervision in Turkey. We reported in our recent Weekly that Erdogan openly threatened Turkey's big-business (and secular) lobby TUSIAD with punitive tax audits. Yesterday, he conti...

Now read on...

Register to sample a report

Register
Sign-in
Forgot your password?
Copyright 2024 GlobalSource Partners. All rights reserved. This is prepared for GlobalSource Partners’ clients and may not be redistributed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, retransmitted or disclosed, in whole or in part, or in any form or manner, without the express written consent of GlobalSource Partners. This is distributed simultaneously to our website and other portals used by GlobalSource Partners. The information herein was obtained from various sources and is believed to be reliable but GlobalSource Partners does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Neither GlobalSource Partners nor any Country Analyst, officer or employee accepts any liability whatsoever for any direct, indirect or consequential damages or losses rising from any use of this or its contents.