Turkey fights US sanctions with threat of ‘new friends’
Erdoğan warns he could turn to Russia and China as tariffs imposed over jailed pastor hit currency
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN warned yesterday that Turkey would “seek new friends” after the US “upset and annoyed” Ankara with sanctions that triggered a currency crisis.
Turkey’s president told Donald Trump to respect its sovereignty “before it is too late”, plunging relations between the Nato allies to their lowest in decades.
Writing in The New York Times, a newspaper often the subject of attacks from the US president, Mr Erdoğan said: “Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical, and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives. Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies.”
The Turkish lira tumbled more than 16 per cent on Friday after Washington imposed harsh steel and aluminium tariffs to compel it to turn over a jailed American pastor.
Mr Trump announced the punitive doubling of steel tariffs, which were imposed in protest over the detention of Andrew Brunson, who was arrested on terrorism charges after the attempted coup against Mr Erdoğan in 2016, saying: “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”
The US is the biggest destination for Turkish steel exports, with 11 per cent of the country’s export volume.
Turkey has weathered several economic crises over the decades, but has traditionally always had Washington’s staunch support.
Mr Erdoğan framed Turkey’s crisis as a “national battle” against economic enemies including the US at a rally in the Black Sea town of Ünye yesterday.
“If they have their dollar, we have the people, we have Allah,” he said, appealing to his Muslim religious base. His supporters in the crowd ripped up US dollar notes in protest.
The president, who has consolidated unprecedented power through a series of referendums, advised Turks to show solidarity by converting any stashedaway gold or foreign currency to Turkish lira in a bid to wage a “war of independence” against America.
“It is wrong to dare bring Turkey to its knees through threats over a pastor,” Mr Erdogan said. “I am calling on those in America again. Shame on you, shame on you. You are exchanging your strategic partner in Nato for a priest.”
Mr Erdogan vowed there would be no easing of the law in Mr Brunson’s case: “We have not made concessions on justice so far, and we will never make any,” he said. Turkey and the US have disagreed on a number of issues since Mr Trump came into office, including Washington’s support of Kurdish groups in neighbouring Syria and its refusal to extradite Fethullah Gülen, the cleric Mr Erdoğan claims is behind the botched attempt to unseat him.
The Trump administration has in recent months imposed sanctions against Turkey, Iran and Russia, creating what has been dubbed an “axis of the sanctioned”. Mr Erdoğan said Turkey would be looking to form alternative economic alliances with “Iran, to Russia, to China and some European countries”.
Meanwhile, Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, accused Washington of an “addiction to sanctions and bullying”. Mr Trump’s “jubilation in inflicting economic hardship on its Nato ally Turkey is shameful,” Mr Zarif wrote on Twitter.
“The US has to rehabilitate its addiction to sanctions (and) bullying or entire world will unite – beyond verbal condemnations – to force it to. We’ve stood with neighbours before, and will again now,” he warned.