Turkey vows retaliation against US sanctions
Turkey has vowed to retaliate against a recent US move to sanction two ministers of the cabinet of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted by media Friday as saying that Ankara was preparing to respond to Washington in equal measures.
“US attempts to impose sanctions on our two ministers will not go unanswered,” Cavusoglu was quoted to have twitted.
"We have said from the start that the other side's threatening language and sanctions will not get any result. We repeated this today," he said after a meeting with the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Singapore.
On Wednesday, the White House announced that it was imposing sanctions on Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.
The sanctions involve freezing any property or assets on the US soil held by the two ministers. The sanctions also prevent American citizens from doing any business with the two ministers.
Late last month, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that his country "will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson.”
Fifty-year-old Brunson faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted of carrying out activities on behalf of two groups, which Turkey considers to be terror organizations.
One is led by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for masterminding the failed 2016 coup against the Turkish government. Gulen denies the claim.
The other is the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting a hugely-deadly separatist war against Turkey for decades.
Brunson, who used to run a Protestant church in the city of Izmir in western Turkey, was recently moved to house arrest, but Washington said that was not enough.
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