The Turkish central bank on Thursday kept its benchmark interest rate steady at 45%, the first pause in a series of rate hikes since June last year. The bank had aggressively hiked the one-week repo rate from 8.5% to 45% between June and January, striving to rein in high inflation and the depreciation of lira currency. The central bank will resume monetary tightening in case of a “significant and persistent deterioration in inflation outlook,” the bank said in a statement following its policy meeting on Thursday. The meeting was the first under the new governor Fatih Karahan, who earlier this …