Almost two years ago, the American Presbyterian minister Andrew Brunson was taken hostage by the Turkish government. The charges against him—“political or military espionage” and “support for a terrorist group”—are absurd. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen extradited from the United States—he holds a paranoid grudge against Gülen, whom he blames for a coup attempt in 2016—and erroneously thought the United States would trade Gülen for Brunson.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have both paid close attention to the case. The president tweeted in April: “Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!” Pence followed up in July by threatening to sanction the Turkish entities relevant to Brunson’s detention.
Pence’s comments appear to have helped drive the Turkish Lira down by nearly 5 percent, but the Erdogan government has remained recalcitrant. In response, the Treasury Department imposed Global Magnitsky sanctions on two Turkish officials, Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.
That we are sanctioning the citizens of a fellow NATO member is regrettable, but Turkey under Erdogan is far closer to an adversary than an ally. Indeed, the country remains a member of NATO mainly because there is no mechanism for ejection. It was Erdogan’s Turkey, remember, that gave refuge to the Hamas terrorist Saleh al-Arouri in 2014. Turkey continues to purchase Iranian oil, despite U.S. sanctions. The Turks have detained other U.S. citizens, too; for instance the NASA physicist and dual U.S.-Turkish citizen Serkan Golge. The United States has often cultivated Turkish favor, partly because it’s a member of NATO, but more importantly because of the strategic air base at Incirlik. Department of Defense leaders are reportedly considering alternative bases in Romania and Jordan. Other possibilities include Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates.
Freeing U.S. military operations from dependence on Incirlik won’t be easy—American nuclear weapons may be stored there—but it would allow greater freedom to pursue regional objectives. For now, though, the most effective weapons are economic. Erdogan blames his country’s faltering economy on (what else?) the United States. His top political ally, Burhan Kuzu, likes to further accuse “Jewish banking families.” But Turkey’s economic woes have mainly to do with domestic policymaking, and especially Erdogan’s bewildering monetary policy. Credit agencies were downgrading Turkish debt and investors fleeing well before sanctions became an issue.
Whatever the cause, the country is now particularly vulnerable to U.S. sanctions, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin signaled last week that his department will impose more if Turkey continues to refuse to release Brunson. The threat of sanctions can pack as much punch as the sanctions themselves in the global economy.
The United States has accused Turkey’s state-owned bank, HalkBank, of circumventing sanctions on Iran, which could result in a fine of tens of billions of dollars. Reza Zarrab, a Turkish gold trader, was found guilty of the same in January. Erdogan seems to think he can avoid monetary punishment by using Brunson as a trading chip. Last month, he asked Trump to persuade the Israelis to release Ebru Ozkan, a Turkish woman alleged to have funneled money to Hamas. Trump obliged, and the Israelis released her. Trump believed they would release Brunson as an act of reciprocal good will, but they, instead, only moved him from prison to house arrest. The administration has, rightly, had enough. On August 20, Trump said flatly that there would be no further concessions.
Germany, France, and Britain are likely open to a policy of isolating NATO’s hostage-taking bad actor. The danger, of course, is that Turkey will move closer to Russia, but that has already begun to happen irrespective of U.S. sanctions—arms and energy deals between Ankara and Moscow have been in the works for years. There’s little point in placating an ally if the ally is behaving like an enemy.
