ANKARA - Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the 2003 budget, in fact, rehabilitated Turkey's deteriorated economic structure.
Erdogan responded questions regarding economy at a program broadcast on a private channel.
Noting that domestic and foreign debts and their interest payments for this year reached 73.5 billion U.S. dollars, Erdogan said, ''if there was another ruling party, would it say I will not repay this interest, domestic debt and foreign debt?'' He added that they would have some surprises and they were working on them continuously.
Erdogan asked for a little patience and said that there were positive and negative effects of war and they could not pretend not to see them, adding that they should take some measures.
When asked whether there were any difficulties in repaying 73.5 billion dollars, Erdogan said that they would repay without any problem.
When recalled some rumors that U.S. dollar would increase to 2 million Turkish Liras due to non-adoption of motion in Parliament, Erdogan said that they did necessary interventions that night and took the situation under control.
(GC-AÖ) 06.03.2003