ALERT: Turkey- Visa Suspensions (October 9, 2017)
October 9, 2017
Due to a disagreement on diplomatic relations, the United States and Turkey have stopped issuing visas for citizens of the other country.
Bloomberg reports:
Markets in Istanbul tumbled after the U.S. and Turkey stopped issuing visas for each other’s citizens in a spat related to last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, deepening divisions between two NATO members already at odds over the war in Syria.
The Trump administration halted visa services for Turks on Sunday, citing the Oct. 4 arrest of a Turkish citizen employed at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul for alleged involvement in the July 2016 putsch attempt. Erdogan’s government responded in kind within hours, repeating verbatim much of the U.S. statement.
According to Fortune:
The move represents a swift deterioration of a long-simmering diplomatic conflict between the two countries. Turkey suspects the U.S. of having helped to plan the failed coup of President Erdogan in 2016 and claims it is now protecting Turks who were involved; The U.S. says Turkey has flouted due process in its arrest of the embassy worker and that there is no evidence of U.S. involvement in the coup. To make matters worse, Erdogan has now all but admitted that he is holding Americans hostage in Turkey as bargaining chips for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish spiritual leader living in self-imposed exile in the U.S.
Until further notice no visas for travel, business, temporary work, study, or medical purposes will be processed by either embassy. That will mean a huge reduction in the number of visas issued between the countries. According to the State Department, American outfits in Turkey issued 113,240 non-settlement visas issued in fiscal year 2016 and only 4,834 settlement visas. U.S. tourism in Turkey has fallen off in recent years. More than 88,000 Americans visited Turkey in 2015, but that number plummeted to just over 37,000 in 2016.
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