Turkey’s Economy Minister Kemal Dervis, a popular non-party technocrat and architect of vital IMF-backed reforms to end the country’s growing economic crisis, announced Saturday he was resigning. "I presented my resignation to the Prime Minister today," he told reporters, according to AFP. His resignation had been expected.
Dervis has been under pressure from Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to make a choice, either step down or drop an initiative to unite Turkey’s fractured center-left -- which includes Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) -- and woo some center-right groups ahead of early elections on November 3.
"We need a strong government after the elections. Turkey has a difficult path ahead of it but we can overcome the obstacles," he said. Dervis, 53, did not immediately say whether he would join the recently formed New Turkey party of the popular former foreign minister Ismail Cem, to which he has lent support. (Albawaba.com)
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