President Donald Trump’s top national security aide, John Bolton, warned Turkey’s ambassador on Monday that Washington has nothing further to negotiate until a detained American pastor is freed, Bloomberg reported.
Bolton delivered that message to Ambassador Serdar Kilic in Washington, according to the two people familiar with the matter. The White House said that Kilic had requested the meeting, which focused on the Ankara government’s detention of an American evangelical pastor, Andrew Brunson.
“At the Turkish ambassador’s request, Ambassador John Bolton met with Ambassador Serdar Kilic of Turkey today in the White House. They discussed Turkey’s continued detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson and the state of the U.S.-Turkey relationship,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said, Reuters informs.
The meeting between Bolton and Kilic is the first encounter announced between senior officials from the two governments, since Trump on Friday ordered an increase in tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum.
Tensions between the two NATO allies have intensified amid a dispute over the detention of the Brunson, whose cause has been championed by Vice President Mike Pence. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that the U.S. “cannot tame” his country with threats, warning that Trump was risking the loss of a strategic ally.
The lira meltdown spread to vulnerable emerging markets on Monday, despite the Turkish central bank taking steps to increase liquidity and ease rules on investing, Politico notes. The Turkish currency has lost about a quarter of its value against the dollar since Washington sanctioned Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul for not releasing Brunson, Daily Sabah writes.
The sanctions were issued under “Executive Order (E.O.) 13818, ‘Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption,’ which builds upon Treasury’s Global Magnitsky Act authorities,” the statement added.
Earlier in the month, the Trump administration hit Turkey with fresh sanctions over Erdogan’s refusal to release Brunson, arrested in October 2016 by Turkey’s government on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization.
Friction between the two nations has also grown in recent years because of disagreements over a strategy in Syria, U.S. tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and Erdogan’s tightening grip on power, as well as the United States’ refusal to hand over a Muslim cleric now living in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016, Politico adds.
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