The U.S. Embassy in Turkey said that reduces visa services after one of the Embassy staff were arrested last week. About it reports Reuters.
This decision was taken after Turkish authorities on Wednesday, October 4, arrested a citizen of the Republic, working at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. He was accused of having links with the Was preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of plotting a failed coup d’état in 2016.
“Recent events have made the United States government to reassess the commitment of the Turkish government, the mission and personnel of the United States,” — reads the statement of the mission in Ankara.
“In order to minimize the number of visitors to our Embassy and consulates, while this assessment is ongoing, we immediately suspended the issuance of all nonimmigrant visas in all the US diplomatic missions in Turkey”, — noted in mission.
July 15, 2016 in Turkey, there was a coup which took the lives of 248 people, more than 2.7 thousand were injured. After that, the country held mass purges in government, the security services, courts, army, educational institutions.
Ankara has accused of organizing the mutiny Gulen living in the United States since 1999. The preacher denies the accusations and insists on his innocence to the coup attempt.