FOREIGN POLICY/IMMIGRATION/TURKEY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “First, the United States and Turkey temporarily stopped issuing visas to each other’s citizens. Then the Turkish lira plunged on international markets, and most travel between the two countries was curtailed.
By midday Monday [10-10-17], fears rose that a minor diplomatic dispute threatened to flare up into a full diplomatic standoff.
But by evening, both sides seemed to be taking steps to ease tensions…
In a statement a few hours later, the American ambassador, John R. Bass, said: ‘This was not a decision we took lightly. It’s a decision we took with great sadness.’
In Turkey, the Foreign Ministry called for an end to the visa suspension because it was causing ‘unnecessary victimization,’ the Turkish state news agency, Anadolu, reported.
The confrontation is taking place against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies who are at odds over a number of issues: American support for Kurdish fighters in Syria; calls by Turkey for the extradition of a cleric in the United States who it says was behind a failed coup last year; and Turkey’s tilt toward Russia in the war in Syria.”
-Carlotta Gall, “U.S. and Turkey Try to Prevent a Diplomatic Dispute From Growing,” The New York Times online, Oct. 9, 2017