National security adviser John Bolton met on Monday with Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S., the White House said, as the Turkish lira continued its slide and dragged stocks lower in Europe and Asia.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that Bolton met with Serdar Kiliç at the White House at the ambassador’s request, and that the two “discussed Turkey’s continued detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson and the state of the U.S.-Turkey relationship.”
The meeting followed a weekend that saw President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey declare the country to be in an “economic war” amid a spike in inflation and Erdoğan’s resistance to raising interest rates or accepting a foreign bailout in response, Bloomberg reported.
The lira selloff spread to vulnerable emerging markets on Monday, despite the Turkish central bank’s taking steps to increase liquidity and ease rules on investing.
President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he was doubling steel and aluminum tariffs on the country because of the plunge of the lira, which reportedly is now at a record low.
Earlier in the month, the Trump administration hit Turkey with fresh sanctions over Erdoğan’s refusal to release Brunson, who was arrested in October 2016 by Turkey’s government on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist organization.
U.S. and Turkish officials met last week to discuss Brunson’s release but were unable to reach a resolution.
Trump declared on Friday that relations with Turkey, a longtime NATO ally of the United States, “are not good at this time!”
Friction between the two nations has grown in recent years because of disagreements over a strategy in Syria, U.S. tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and Erdoğan’s tightening grip on power, as well as the United States’ refusal to hand over a Muslim cleric now living in Pennsylvania whom Erdoğan blames for an attempted coup in 2016.