FILE - Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek speaks during a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. Turkey on Friday, June 28, 2024, welcomed a decision by an international watchdog to remove it from a so-called gray list of countries that have not fully implemented measures to fight money laundering and terrorism financing. We succeeded, Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek wrote on the social media platform X, as the decision was being announced.
Vice-President Cevdet Yilmaz said: “With this development, international investors’ confidence in our country’s financial system has become even stronger. The decision will have extremely positive consequences for the financial sector and the economy.” FATF President T. Raja Kumar, who is finishing his two-year term, said Turkey was taken off the gray list because of the “substantial progress” that it has made.
As examples he cited Turkey's complex investigations into and prosecutions of money laundering and terrorist financing. Turkey was placed on the list in 2021.