Turks protest at financial crisis

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish police have detained protesting public sector workers angry at the government's handling of the country's financial crisis.

Members of the left-leaning Confederation of Public Workers Unions (KESK) gathered in cities across Turkey on Tuesday demanding wage increases and government resignations.

Public fury has grown as the Turkish lira crashed following last week's public row between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Necdet Sezer, slashing the value of wages and savings.

International Monetary Fund officials have met Turkish leaders to review economic reforms, backed by $11 billion in IMF loans.

The reforms now lie in ruins after the government abandoned currency controls and floated the lira on Thursday in an effort to halt the financial turmoil.

The lira hovered at 985,000 to the dollar on Tuesday -- a 30 percent depreciation since its flotation.

"We want the government to take responsibility. We also want the IMF programme cancelled and civil servants' wages to match inflation," a KESK official said.

In separate protests, more than 500 bank workers shouted slogans and marched through Istanbul to protest against the IMF.

Public sector workers' groups have said their wage deals were based on unrealistically low inflation expectations and the sharp depreciation of the lira will make imported goods such as oil more expensive, driving up inflation.

Some firms have not paid salaries in order to fund bank loans and many Turks with dollar debts are now facing much higher repayment costs.

Two key finance officials behind the IMF programme -- Central Bank chief Gazi Ercel and treasury head Selcuk Demiralp -- have already resigned but the public wants more action.

"Either the government must resign or the people responsible for this crisis must leave," the KESK official said. "This will not pass by letting go of one or two bureaucrats."

Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said Turkey would pay a heavy price for its latest financial crisis but said the government was committed to the three-year economic reform programme.

"We do not know the full extent and depth of the damage but it is clear that the cost for the country and the people is heavy."

Yilmaz added that the government would stick by its central aim of slashing chronic inflation to single digits by the end of 2002.

Ecevit, who set off the crisis after storming out of a meeting with the president, has rejected calls for the government to resign or for him to sack ministers.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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