It seems Americans don’t want Brunson released: Turkey’s former PM Yılmaz

RİZE

Americans seem like they don’t want Turkey to release pastor Andrew Brunson, former Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz has said.

Speaking in the Black Sea province of Rize on July 30, Yılmaz questioned the U.S. administration’s motives after President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence threatened Turkey with sanctions over a court ruling last week transferring Brunson from prison to house arrest.

“You can’t even make a tiny African country release a prisoner by threatening it like that. Perhaps Brunson would be acquitted in the first hearing, but now he is in a more difficult position. I think that this is bad diplomacy, showing a lack of coherence in U.S. administration,” Yılmaz said. “America is currently experiencing a huge chaos in its administration.”

Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina who has lived in Turkey for more than two decades, was indicted on charges of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), which Ankara blames for the failed coup in 2016. He was transferred to house arrest on July 25.