IMF Tech Team Needed For Loan Deal Not To Visit Turkey Oct-IHA

ISTANBUL -(Dow Jones)- The IMF won't be sending a technical team to Turkey - needed for the conclusion of loan talks - during the fund and the World Bank's annual meeting taking place in Istanbul next month, the Ihlas News Agency, or IHA, reports IMF Turkey representative Hossein Samiei as saying Wednesday.

"Conclusion of the discussions would require the presence of the technical team...and the technical team is not attending [the annual meetings in Istanbul]," Samiei told reporters.

Turkey has been in talks with the IMF for a new loan deal since a three-year $10 billion program expired in May 2008.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said recently that he expected the talks to become decisive during the upcoming IMF-World Bank meeting, Oct. 6-7. But IMF director of external relations Caroline Atkinson said Tuesday that the fund has no deadline for its negotiations with Turkey.