Diplomatic row between US and Turkey leads to visa ban

Relations between Turkey and the US have reached a new low, just weeks after President Trump announced that the NATO allies were ‘as close as we’ve ever been’. In what appears to be a ‘tit for tat’ action, Turkey has announced a ban on non-immigrant US visa applications, a day after the US suspended its visa processing for non-immigrant Turkish citizens (9 October).

The initial suspension by the US embassy in Ankara followed the arrest of a US embassy employee, Metin Topuz, in Istanbul. Reports in the pro-government Turkish media have linked the official to US-based Fethullah Gulen, an exiled preacher suspected by the Turkish government of spearheading the failed coup attempt in 2016. Since then, President Erdogan has imposed an intensive security crackdown involving the arrest of tens of thousands of Turks, including some with dual US citizenship, which has strained relations with the US and also other NATO allies.

Washington DC and Ankara have also clashed over the US’s arming of the Syrian Kurds, in particular of a militia known as the YPG, as part of the fight against ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group. A furore broke out in Washington DC in May when President Erdogan’s security guards were caught on camera assaulting peaceful protestors in Washington, DC, while Erdogan was in the US for his first meeting with Trump. Another cause for concern for the US is Turkey’s deal to buy S-400 missiles from Russia.