{"id":12380,"date":"2018-08-22T11:26:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T11:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12380"},"modified":"2018-08-22T11:26:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T11:26:18","slug":"bolton-turkey-can-end-lira-crisis-instantly-by-freeing-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=12380","title":{"rendered":"Bolton: Turkey can end lira crisis ‘instantly’ by freeing pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser has said that Turkey could end its lira-battering crisis with Washington “instantly” by freeing a detained American pastor, adding that a Qatari cash infusion would not help Ankara’s economy.<\/p>\n

The Turkish currency has been in freefall since Washington ordered tariffs in retaliation for the detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson on charges of complicity in a failed 2016 coup.<\/p>\n

Brunson denies wrongdoing, and Ankara has in the past suggested his fate could be linked to that of a US-based Turkish religious leader whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the attempted putsch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brunson, who has lived in Turkey for two decades, has been detained for 21 months on terrorism charges. He is now under house arrest.<\/p>\n

“Look, the Turkish government made a big mistake in not releasing Pastor Brunson,” John Bolton told the Reuters news agency in an interview during a visit to Israel.<\/p>\n

“Every day that goes by that mistake continues, this crisis could be over instantly if they did the right thing as a NATO ally, part of the West, and release pastor Brunson without condition.”<\/p>\n

Qatari assistance<\/h2>\n

Qatar’s Emir this month approved a package of economic projects, including a $15bn pledge of support for Turkey, giving a boost to the lira that has lost some 37 percent of its value this year.<\/p>\n

Bolton was sceptical about the intervention by the Gulf state, which has been feuding with US allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt.<\/p>\n

“Well, I think what they pledged is utterly insufficient to have an impact on Turkey’s economy. It’s certainly not helpful but we’ll actually see what develops from their pledge,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Turkish lira has lost 37 percent of its value this year in a currency crisis triggered by concern over Erdogan’s influence over monetary policy and exacerbated by the dispute with Washington.<\/p>\n

Last week a court in Turkey’s Izmir province rejected an appeal<\/a> to release Brunson, saying evidence was still being collected and the pastor posed a flight risk, according to the Turkish media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser has said that Turkey could end its lira-battering crisis with Washington “instantly” by freeing a detained American pastor, adding that a Qatari cash infusion would not help Ankara’s economy. The Turkish currency has been in freefall since Washington ordered tariffs in retaliation for the detention of Pastor Andrew…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":12381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}