Turkish PM slams S&P for downgrading his country

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Standard and Poor's rating agency on Thursday, May 3, saying its downgrading of Turkey's outlook was clouded by an "ideological approach."

Erdoğan told a televised meeting in Istanbul: "This is entirely an ideological approach. You cannot fool anybody, you cannot fool Tayyip Erdoğan."

He condemned the outlook revision as "very odd" and hit back at what he implied was discrimination by S&P, which had improved the outlook of crisis-hit neighboring Greece, while lowering the perspective for Turkey.

The Turkish PM also threatened not to recognize the Standard and Poor's as “a credible ratings agency.”

On Tuesday, Standard and Poor's revised the outlook on Turkey's long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings to stable, from positive.

On Wednesday, the agency lifted Greece out of selective default status in view of a bond swap which cancelled a big slice of Greek debt.

Explaining its view of Turkey, the agency said: "Less-buoyant external demand and worsening terms of trade (the price of exports compared to imports) have, in our view, made economic re-balancing more difficult, and have increased the risks to Turkey's creditworthiness given its high external debt and the state budget's reliance on indirect tax revenues."

The agency said: "We have revised the outlook on Turkey's long-term sovereign credit ratings to stable from positive, reflecting our view that the ratings are likely to remain at the current level during the next 12 months."

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek joined the government's criticism and blasted the report as full of "very serious" mistakes, Hurriyet Daily News reported.