Morning Commentary: Turkey’s bonds, credit open with solid tone after volatile session

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, Nov. 30 – The Republic of Turkey’s bonds and credit opened with a solid tone and traded well on Thursday after a volatile session on Wednesday as testimony in the closely watched Iran sanctions evasion court case brought no fresh revelations of corruption or scandal, market sources said.

The testimony of Turkish-Iranian trader Reza Zarrab hasn’t brought out “anything crazy that could lead to sanctions against Turkish banks or anything like that,” a London-based market source said.

There weren’t 10 more banks names or anything that would lead to further investigations of the government at the highest levels, the source said.

Zarrab’s testimony was against Halkbank ex-deputy CEO Mehmet Hakan Atilla and seven other defendants that remain at large on a series of international corruption allegations. Zarrab was arrested in 2016 for allegedly conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, engaging in transactions on behalf of the government of Tehran, money-laundering and bank fraud.

Zarrab confirmed that he pleaded guilty and was asking for leniency in return for his testimony. He referred to Atilla as the most knowledgeable person about sanction rules and accused him of covering up the scheme to make it look “like it’s complying with the American sanctions.”

The trial is expected to continue in New York for three or four weeks.

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