ANKARA Turkey's Economy Minister Kemal Dervis has vowed to resign if the government fails to implement economic reforms that are tied to a new $8 billion IMF loan.

"I would resign. I would not stay," Dervis told the **** Financial Times' **** Tuesday edition when asked what he would do if the three-party coalition stalled on the reforms to which the money's phased disbursement is tied.

Dervis conceded that the third bailout in two years for Turkey was reluctantly agreed to by the international community and was unlikely to be repeated, Reuters reported.

Approval of the loan by the International Monetary Fund's board, expected later on Tuesday, would pave the way for a further $2 billion package from the World Bank.

"I'm not sure that everyone (in Turkey) understands the extent of the support," said Dervis, a former World Bank official summoned back to Turkey at the height of the crisis to take over the reins of the economy.

Turkey needs the money to ease investor concern over a swelling domestic debt burden. The country has been trying to rehabilitate a banking sector that has collapsed into crisis twice in the last six months.

Dervis said the only alternatives were default on public debt, which is expected to approach 80 percent of gross domestic product by the end of this year, or to "give up" the fight against inflation.

He said the program had a "good chance of success" thanks to unprecedented public support -- reflected in opinion polls -- for a departure from corruption and populism.

Previous reform efforts had foundered on a lack of coordination and political ownership of measures that were led primarily by civil servants rather than ministers, he said.

"This message of let's separate politics from economics, let's not have a rent-seeking system, let's fight corruption' is an extremely popular one," Dervis said.

Wrangling between Dervis and the communications minister from the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) kept markets on edge for weeks over a law to privatize landline monopoly Turk Telekom that was eventually passed at the weekend.

Differences with the third coalition party, Motherland, led to last minute changes in another crucial law reforming the banking sector, according to Turkish media reports.

"The biggest danger for this program is that the vested interests will derail it," Servis was quoted as saying.

Dervis said that interest rates should come down sharply after the foreign lending comes in, helping to unblock the paralysis in the economy of recent months. Tourism and exports should then drive a recovery in the second half of the year.

But he added: "If the economy remains in the kind of contraction it is in now, if the growth rate is minus six percent rather than three percent, I think it will be hard to keep the fiscal targets."