Turkey to look for alternative to Russian Mir payment system due to US sanctions - Erdoğan 

This was reported by the state Turkish news agency Anadolu with reference to the statement of the President of Turkey, Recep Erdoğan.

"We will look at the alternatives we have. We will focus on them," he said.

Earlier, the media reported that Erdogan will convene an economic meeting on Friday to discuss the Russian Mir payment system and possible Western sanctions.

It is known that the acceptance of the Mir cards has been suspended by one of the largest Turkish banks, Turkiye Is Bankasi (Isbank), as well as by the Turkish Denizbank, a former subsidiary of Sberbank, sold in 2019 to the Dubai company Emirates NBD.

This happened after last Thursday the US Treasury issued clarifications according to which financial institutions from countries outside the US, concluding agreements with the Russian National System of Payment Cards (NSPC), may be involved in circumventing US sanctions by expanding the territory of use of the Russian Mir payment systems outside the Russian Federation.

The clarification also clarified that the NSPC itself is not on the sanctions list, but simultaneously with the publication of this document, the US added Vladimir Komlev, the general director of the NSPC, to the list of blocking sanctions.