ANKARA/WASHINGTON — Turkey does not wish to have problems with the United States and the two NATO allies could easily overcome their differences but not with the current US approach, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday.
“We can solve issues with the United States very easily, but not with the current approach,” Cavusoglu told a news conference.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned on Thursday the United States would levy more sanctions on the troubled Turkish economy if Ankara does not soon release a jailed American pastor.
Deepening a spat that has rattled financial markets and threated to split a long-standing defense and political alliance, Mnuchin on Thursday suggested the next spiral of tit-for-tat sanctions was coming soon.
“We have put sanctions on several of their cabinet members,” Mnuchin told President Donald Trump in a Cabinet meeting attended by the press.
“We have more that we are planning to do if they don’t release him quickly.”
Trump prefaced Mnuchin’s remarks by saying that Turkey had not been a very good friend to America.
Referring to imprisoned pastor Andrew Brunson, Trump said “they have a great Christian pastor there, he’s a very innocent man.”
Turkish courts have moved to defuse other legal cases that have irritated relations with the EU.
An Istanbul court allowed the release of Amnesty International’s Turkey chair Taner Kilic on Wednesday, who spent more than a year in jail over alleged links to the 2016 coup bid.
And the day earlier, two Greek soldiers held by Turkey since March for illegally crossing the border were also freed. — Agencies