Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said that Ankara will boycott electronic products from Washington, in response to United States’ sanctions against his country for detaining an American pastor.
“We will boycott US electronic products,” the Turkish president said, according to The Guardian. “If they have [Apple] iPhone, the other side [South Korea] has Samsung. In our country there is Venus, Vestel [Turkish smartphone brands].”
“They [the US] do not refrain from using the economy as a weapon against us, as they tried in the areas of diplomacy, military, or efforts for social and political instability,” Erdogan added.
US sanctions have led to a fall in the value of the lira, the Turkish currency, to record lows. Meanwhile, the American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who was detained in October 2016 on terrorism-related charges after a failed coup attempt in Turkey, said through his lawyer that he will appeal his house arrest and travel ban.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called US sanctions against Moscow and Ankara “an illegitimate policy and a way for the US to obtain an unfair competitive advantage in global trade”, The Guardian reported.
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