BICOM

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has attacked US President Donald Trump for imposing sanctions and doubling tariffs on Turkey’s steel and aluminium imports.

Erdogan said: “We are together in NATO and then you stab your strategic partner in the back. Can such a thing be accepted?”

The recent tensions followed the decision of a Turkish Court to detain an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, under house arrest. Brunson has been detained for nearly two years on terrorism charges and accused of connections to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Gulenist movement, a group which Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016.

Erdogan claimed that Turkey was facing an “economic siege”  and described the currency movements as an “attack against our country”.

Following what was dubbed “Black Friday” in Turkey, the central bank claimed it was ready to take “all necessary measures” to ensure financial stability.

Turkey’s Interior Ministry said it will take legal action against 346 social media accounts it claimed had posted comments about the weakening lira “in a provocative way”.

Erdogan said that he has made no application to the International Monetary Fund for emergency financial help and said the lira would soon settle “at the most reasonable level.”

The Turkish lira has lost 20 per cent of its value against the dollar this month and has suffered a 45% drop this year.

UK companies exposed to Turkey saw their share prices fall and European banking stocks fell by 1 per cent yesterday. Analysts have suggested that Erdogan is keen to exploit the possibility of support from other allies such as Russia or China, which could significantly affect Turkey’s relationship with the EU and NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has arrived in Ankara for talks with Erdogan today.