Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly and personally attacked U.S. Ambassador John Bass, Tuesday, calling an arrested Turkish worker at the American consulate in Istanbul a “spy.” Bass suspended non-immigrant visa services in Turkey on Monday in response to the arrest.
“An ambassador in Ankara taking decisions and saying he is doing so in the name of his government is strange,” Erdogan said at an appearance with the Serbian President in Ankara Tuesday. “If our ambassador did this, we wouldn’t keep him there even a minute.”
How and why the staffer, Metin Topuz, was arrested remains unclear, but the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey, released a video Monday explaining the decision to suspend visa services.
“Last week, for the second time this year, a Turkish staff member of our diplomatic mission was arrested by Turkish authorities,” Ambassador Bass says in the video. “Despite our best efforts to learn the reasons for this arrest, we have been unable to determine why it occurred or what, if any, evidence exists against the employee.”
“This arrest has raised questions about whether the goal of some officials is to disrupt the long-standing co-operation between Turkey and the United States,” Bass continues. “If true, this would put the people who work with, and work at, and visit our diplomatic facilities at risk.”
Bass described Topuz as someone who speaks with Turkish authorities to facilitate U.S.-Turkish law enforcement cooperation. He also took issue with what he characterized as a lack of due process in Topuz’s handling by Turkish authorities and complained, “We don’t know if these arrests are singular events or if we should expect other Turkish staff members to be arrested for simply speaking to Turkish government officials or the wider Turkish public in the course of their duties.”
According to Erdogan, however, Topuz’s true role was much more sinister. The Turkish president — often described as a “moderate” Islamist by western news media — all but accused Ambassador Bass’s diplomatic mission employees of espionage, using a word translated by the Associated Press (AP) as “spies” and by Reuters as “agents.”
“How did these spies infiltrate the American consulate? If they didn’t infiltrate the American consulate, who put them there? No state would allow such spies that pose an internal threat,” the AP quotes Erdogan.
Turkish police reportedly suspect Topuz of ties to the mysterious network of Fethullah Gulen, the exiled Turkish imam who allegedly masterminded last year’s unsuccessful coup against Erdogan from his home in Pennsylvania.
The suspension of visa services implemented in response to Topuz’s detention will affect only the U.S. embassy and consulates in the Republic of Turkey, not the wider privilege of Turkish citizens to travel to the United States. “This is not a visa ban on Turkish citizens,” Bass explained, “It’s a suspension of our consideration of new visa applications.”
The ostensible purpose will be to cut down on traffic at American diplomatic facilities in Turkey as they assess the situation surrounding the arrest. Turks will still be allowed to apply for visas at facilities outside of Turkey.
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