Erdoğan was speaking to reporters in the town of Bayburt as he left Friday prayers.

Turkey’s lira slumped as much as 13.5 percent earlier in the day to a record low of 6.468 per dollar. It traded down 6.5 percent at 5.91 liras at 2:45 p.m. in Istanbul.

The country is reeling from a slide in the value of the lira amid a political standoff with the United States over the internment of a U.S. pastor and after the central bank failed to intervene to prop up the currency.

Analysts fear that the lira’s losses could spark a corporate debt crisis as companies struggle to repay more than $220 billion in foreign loans.

Erdoğan’s comments followed a statement late on Thursday in which he cited Allah and the Turkish people as the defender of his government unidentified people with dollars.