Gul: Government Has Well Managed The Crisis

ANKARA - Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Sunday, ''the government has well managed the Iraq crisis.''
Speaking at a program on the private Channel-7 TV, Gul said, ''some circles claimed that price of one U.S. dollars would increase up to 2-3 million Turkish liras. However, none of these claims came real. The government has well managed the Iraq crisis. It has taken all necessary measures.''
Responding a question about criticisms saying that the government had created an expectation about aid package of the United States, Gul said, ''I cannot say that all criticisms were unfair. However, some of them were irresponsible in such a critical period. The United States proposed that economic aid package. In fact, we could not reach a compromise on it. The United States made many promises in 1991. Therefore, we wanted to turn these promises into an official document. We had to negotiate in order to reach a compromise. They resisted. In return, we resisted as well. As a result, any solution could not be reached. The optimistic atmosphere should spread in order to revive our economy as soon as possible.''
''If we had not experienced such a war in our region, we would have to take some economic measures. We have to shrink the state and make important reforms. However, the war in Iraq prevented us from making these reforms. In order to decrease real interest rates, we have to reach a compromise with international finance organizations. Now, we will concentrate our efforts to decrease real interest rates,'' he added.
(UK-AY) 13.04.2003