Erdogan told a televised meeting in Istanbul: “This is entirely an ideological approach. You cannot fool anybody, you cannot fool Tayyip Erdogan.”
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 premier 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.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek joined the government’s criticism and blasted the report as full of “very serious” mistakes.
“They should first do... correct analyzes,” said Simsek, accusing Standard and Poor’s of having obsessions about Turkey and failing to appreciate the political stability in the country where the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) headed by Erdogan is exercising its third term in power in a row.
