Belarus’s government announced earlier this year it would begin a large-scale effort to privatize many of the state’s assets. On Tuesday, a deal was announced between the government and Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile phone company, to sell 80 percent of the nation’s state-owned cell phone firm BeST. Turkcell will pay the Belarusian government $300 million for the majority stake, and an additional $100 million each of the next two years. The half billion-dollar deal follows an earlier sale of 70 percent of Belarus’s second largest mobile phone company, Velcom, to Austria Telecom. See this Reuters article for full details on the privatization move.