TEHRAN The nationalist wing of Turkey's coalition government clashed with Economy Minister Kemal Dervis in late-night arguments over reams of reform laws demanded by the IMF, Reuters quoted newspapers as reporting on Saturday.

Turkey expects to receive between 3.5 and 4 billion dollars from the IMF by the end of June to calm financial markets.

The funds were the first tranche of a 10-billion-dollar support package by the IMF and World Bank to support rapid, deep reform to the battered Turkish economy.

The rest of the funds would be spread over the year.

The International Monetary Fund is to provide eight billion dollars and the World Bank two billion dollars, Turkish Economy Minister Kemal Dervis said.

But Turkey must begin to implement key reforms before the international assistance package is presented for final approval by the IMF board in mid-May.

Turkey abandoned a crawling peg between the Turkish lira and the dollar on February 22 in the face of an exodus of funds following a widespread loss of confidence in the government's economic management.

Financial crises, the depreciation of the currency, and the resulting price pressures broke the basis of the previous IMF-agreed anti-inflation program and forced Turkey back into the fund's arms.

The first IMF plan, agreed in December last year, was worth more than $11 billion, including seven billion dollars in emergency aid. But it failed to protect Turkey from economic turmoil. Turkey has promised the IMF it will pass a swathe of deep-reaching reform legislation drawn up by Dervis before the fund meets on May 15 to approve $10 billion in new IMF and World Bank lending to help Turkey pull itself out of economic crisis.

But reports in most of the country's major newspapers indicate the strain of the legislative pace and the reforms, which demand the withdrawal of state control over many economic sectors, is telling on the three-party alliance.

All three large-circulation dailies with close links to the establishment reported a bust-up between Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) wing of the government, and Dervis over the details of telecommunications sector liberalization.

"With Bahceli and Dervis facing off, the government shook to the biggest earthquake in its two years of life," wrote the newspaper *** Sabah. ****