Alwaght- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the US on Monday saying Washington is stabbing its strategic ally “in the back” as diplomatic row between the two NATO-member states is intensifying.
“You act on one side as a strategic partner but on the other you fire bullets into the foot of your strategic partner,” Erdogan told a conference in Turkey's capital of Ankara.
“We are together in NATO and then you seek to stab your strategic partner in the back. Can such a thing be accepted?” AFP quoted the president as saying.
The Turkish leader added that his nation was facing an “economic siege,” slamming the currency movements as an “attack against our country,” adding, however, that the dynamics of the Turkish economy are “solid, strong and sound and will continue to be so."
Tensions between the US and Turkey have been escalated recently as Ankara keeps detaining American pastor Andrew Brunson for espionage charges. The pastor, who has been living in Turkey for over 20 years, was detained in 2016 as the Turkish government accused him of links to the Gulenist movement which Ankara blames for orchestrating the July 2016 failed military coup.
Since the attempted power grab, the two sides engaged in a range of diplomatic spats. Their embassies, for example, stopped issuing visas last year. Ankara also arrested the US embassy’s personnel on spying charges. Furthermore, the two allies are at odds over Syria war.
Their row has now developed from diplomatic spats to economic conflicts, where the two are flexing muscles for each other. On Monday, the Trump administration said it was reviewing Turkey's duty-free access to the US market, a move that could affect $1.7 billion of Turkish exports. Turkey had already responded to the White House imposing tariffs on Turkey’s steel and aluminum exports to the US. Soon after the US administration announced the new limitations, the Turkish government said it will reciprocate in response.
On June 21, Turkey implemented $266.5 million in tariffs on the US goods, a day before the European Union will launch its own retaliatory measures against President Donald Trump’s duties on steel and aluminum.
