IMF still chasing Turkey’s tail

It threatens to be the longest running thriller since “The Mousetrap” opened at Saint Martin’s Theater in London more than half a century ago. Negotiations between the International Monetary Fund and Turkey over a standby loan have been on and off ever since the previous $10 billion agreement expired in May of 2008. Bankers, analysts and journalists have been speculating for most of that time that a new deal would be struck within days, weeks or months, and the reports of the amounts being discussed have varied from $6 billion as the “minimum needed to rescue the Turkish economy,” to sums as high as $50 billion. “Excuse our cynicism,” said Timothy Ash, head of emerging markets strategy at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, “but we have had similar promises appearing in the media of an IMF deal being cut at the IMF autumn 2008, spring and autumn 2009