QA-51, 26 July 2018, Statement of the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Hami Aksoy, in response to a question regarding the social media messages by President Trump and Vice President Pence of the United States of America

Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı 26.07.2018

Turkey is a sovereign state with a deep-rooted democratic tradition and political order which upholds the supremacy of law . No one can give orders to Turkey and threaten our country. The rhetoric of threat against Turkey is unacceptable.

In order to improve its relations with the United States, our country has displayed necessary political will and did its part more than enough. It is impossible to accept the U.S. Administration’s threatening messages, which totally disregard our alliance and friendly relations between our countries.

As regards the Brunson case, necessary information has been provided to our U.S. counterparts on various occasions and it has been clearly expressed that this issue is totally within the competence of the independent Turkish judiciary.

We invite the U.S. Administration to leave aside this wrongful rhetoric and come back to the existing framework of constructive dialogue that we have been engaged in so far.