ANKARA: Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wed­nesday Ankara would not submit to “impositions” from the United States to resolve a feud which has seen the two Nato allies stop issuing visas to each other’s citizens.

However, President Tay­yip Erdogan’s spokesman struck a more positive tone, saying he expected the crisis to be resolved soon following the arrival in Turkey of a US delegation for talks on repairing bilateral ties.

Earlier this month Wash­ington suspended visa services after Turkey detained two Turkish nationals emp­loyed as US consular staff. They are being held on suspicion of links to last year’s failed coup in Turkey, allegations rejected by US.

The United States has said it wants details of the charges against its staff, and Turkish broadcaster Haberturk said the US delegation had set four conditions to solve the crisis, including Ankara providing evidence related to the detentions. “We will cooperate if their demands meet the rules of our constitution but we will not succumb to impositions and we will reject any conditions that we cannot meet,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2017