ANKARA: Turks transferred 10 billion lira ($889 million) worth of forex deposits into a new instrument the government introduced this week that covers any FX depreciation losses, Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati said on Thursday.

Since the instrument was announced on Monday the lira has rallied sharply from an all-time low, raising questions over whether the central bank is backing state-bank interventions to sell dollars and accelerate the gains.

“Now people are asking why we intervened through the central bank or Treasury,” Nebati said on broadcaster NTV. “Is Turkey an unskillful country that watches the developments by itself and doesn’t use all the instruments at its disposal in a positive way? It uses all the instruments,” he added.