(turkishdailynew) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to help Turkey find a way out of an impasse on a critical social security reform after the Constitutional Court rejected parts of it.
Hugh Bredenkamp, the global lender's representative in Turkey, told reporters that the IMF would talk to the Turkish government about making changes in the reform, which raises the retirement age and creates a single social security body, reports Trend.
We haven't formed any view on that. The government is figuring out what options to take and we will discuss with them and provide any assistance, he said. A way had to be found to make the reform implementable, Bredenkamp said. But he added it was impossible to say how long that might take.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a secularist who often clashes with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoСЂan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, had objected to the reform and applied to the Constitutional Court to reject it. Delays in passing the reform in the past have caused market jitters and prompted a rebuke from the IMF, which has a loan deal with Turkey.
The reform plan is viewed as key to maintaining Turkey's fiscal balances as the welfare system runs a large deficit -- despite the youth of the country's fast-growing population of some 70 million -- due to mismanagement and widespread early retirement.