Turkey was braced for fresh defections from ailing premier Mr Bulent Ecevit's party after the foreign minister quit, but crisis-hit investors gained some relief after the economy minister was persuaded to stay on.
Financial markets have been wracked with fears the impasse in Ankara, caused by Mr Ecevit's ill health and long periods away from his desk, could ruin a $16 billion International Monetary Fund deal.
This was designed to drag Turkey out of its worst recession since 1945, wrought by two successive crises since 2000.
Mr Ismail Cem, the pro-European Union foreign minister credited with forging a thaw in ties with historic rival and neighbor Greece, resigned yesterday after five years in the post.
He was the seventh minister to desert Mr Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) and is to hold a news conference today, which could serve as a rallying cry for DSP deputies to join the 30 or so who have quit already.
But Economy Minister Mr Kemal Dervis, a non-party technocrat recruited after the second crisis erupted in February 2001, said he had withdrawn his resignation upon Mr Ecevit's request just hours after offering it - again, at the premier's request.
Fighting to retain his slipping grasp on power, Mr Ecevit issued an emotional statement urging the former DSP deputies to return to the party he and his wife founded in the 1980s.
"Some of our friends are serving the purposes of those circles who want to destroy the DSP, they are falling into a trap," he said in his first public statement since his rightist coalition partners sparked a crisis last Sunday by demanding elections be held early, in November.
Illness has sidelined the 77-year-old veteran premier from normal duties since early May, allowing simmering tensions to overwhelm his three-way governing coalition at odds over sensitive political reforms needed to meet EU standards.
The bickering scared markets, fearful the economy's slow recovery would be lost. Investors this week pushed the lira currency to a record low and already onerous government debt yields past 70 per cent.
Mr Ecevit has signaled early polls may be inevitable, but has also made clear he still has no intention of stepping down from a post he has held five times in a decades-spanning career.