Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrived Thursday in Washington where he is going to represent his country in the meeting of Group of 20 leaders.


The G-20 meeting, hosted by U.S. President George W. Bush, would also be attended by the leaders of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union.



G-20 countries would discuss the possible joint measures that could be taken against the growing global turmoil, while for Turkey, Erdogan's meetings with the IMF and other institutions on possible financial support packages would be monitored closely.



The Turkish government, who long denied the need of any financial support saying the economy is strong, is now set to take steps to tackle the impacts of the global crisis.



Turkey and the IMF are having disagreements over the new shape of future relations as the markets pile on pressure for the new deal to include financial support, which had been previously ruled out by the government.



The IMF presses the government to curb the spending of the local administrations, a move unwelcomed by the Erdogan government ahead of local elections set for March 2009.



Recent media reports suggest Erdogan might knock on the door of the Federal Reserve to use the swap facility in which the Fed had provided loans to a couple of other emerging markets.



The intense sell-offs and risk aversion move had restarted in the Turkish markets recently, as the stock exchange shed more than 4 percent in its value in the last two days and the dollar rose to the highest levels of the month.