The lira dropped 0.7 percent to 6.25 per dollar at 10:09 a.m. local time in Istanbul, approaching the lowest levels in regular trading since the weeks following a currency crisis in August 2018. The main BIST-100 index of shares slumped 6.5 percent to 103,256 points.
At least 33 soldiers martyred and a further 36 were wounded in air strikes on Thursday, Turkish officials said. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed to retaliate with a major offensive against Bashar Assad’s army. Ankara has called on NATO for support.
The lira slumped by 28 percent against the dollar in 2018, sending economic activity into a tailspin. It fell a further 11 percent against the U.S. currency last year.
NATO willl hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday, acting on a Turkish request filed under Article 4 of the founding treaty, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Twitter.