Turkey’s top economic management sees another shakeup

Turkey’s top economic management sees another shakeup

ANKARA: Mehmet Hakan Atilla, CEO of Turkey's Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul), resigned from his post on Monday, triggering doubts about the motivations behind this abrupt move at the one of key economic managerial posts of the country. Atilla was appointed to his post in October 2019 in a controversial decision just after being sentenced to 32 months in prison in the US for helping Iran circumvent sanctions while he was deputy executive at Turkey's state-run Halkbank “” a case Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered a politically motivated assault against the Turkish government. Atilla served a 28-month jail term in the US and was released in 2019, when he was appointed as head of the stock exchange by Erdogan's son-in-law and former Finance Minister Berat Albayrak. For some, the resignation may be connected to the impending Halkbank trial on May 3 in New York as a gesture to fix US-Turkey relations in the upcoming months and attract foreign investors amid rising speculations that Albayrak may return to an economic management post in the government. During the upcoming New York trial, Halkbank faces a fine of up to $20 billion with charges of money laundering, evasion of sanctions and fraud