ISTANBUL - Turkey is accelerating efforts to strengthen central bank foreign reserves, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Tuesday, noting that the bank's net international reserves surged a record $8.5 billion last week.

"The return to rational policies will continue gradually," said Simsek on Twitter. "We are accelerating our efforts to obtain additional foreign resources to our country in order to further strengthen the reserves."

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Writing by Daren Butler)