US, Turkey mutually halt all visa services

US and Turkey scaled back visa issuing services in each other's countries in a deepening diplomatic row

WASHINGTON DC: The United States on Sunday indefinitely suspended handling all regular visa applications in Turkey, dramatically escalating a row after one of the mission's Turkish staffers was arrested.

The Ankara embassy said in a statement that until further notice none of its missions in Turkey would issue non-immigrant visas.

"Recent events" had forced the US government to reassess Turkey's "commitment" to the security of US mission services and personnel in the country, it said.



In order to minimise the number of visitors while the assessment is carried out, "effective immediately we have suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all US diplomatic facilities in Turkey," it said.

Non-immigrant visas are issued to all those travelling to the United States for tourism, medical treatment, business, temporary work or study. Immigrant visa services are only for those seeking to live in the US permanently.

Beyond mentioning "recent events", the statement made no explicit mention of the the arrest by Turkish authorities of a local Turkish staffer working at the US consulate in Istanbul.

The employee was remanded in custody by an Istanbul court late Wednesday on accusations of links to the group of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for last year's failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The staffer has been formally charged with espionage and seeking to overthrow the Turkish government.

The US embassy on Thursday said it was "deeply disturbed" over the arrest and rejected the allegations against the employee as "wholly without merit".

The statement also condemned leaks in the local press which it said came from Turkish government sources that were "seemingly aimed at trying the employee in the media rather than a court of law."

But Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has defended the arrest, saying "there must be serious evidence" and pointing to a phone call made from the Istanbul consulate to a key suspect on the night of the coup.

That latest arrest also came after a Turkish employee at the US consulate in the southern city of Adana was arrested in March on charges of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The Adana region is home to the US airbase at Turkey's Incirlik military airport, where dozens of American nuclear missiles are stored and which serves as a key hub for operations in Syria.

The suspension in accepting applications for and issuing all normal visas is extremely unusual. US missions in Moscow in August suspended the issuing of non-immigrant visas for nine days and then scaled back operations.

There has yet to be an official reaction from Ankara but the pro-government Yeni Safak daily described it as "a scandalous decision from the United States".

Turkey said Sunday it was halting all visa services for Americans at its diplomatic missions in the US in a tit-for-tat move after Washington made a similar announcement earlier in the day.

"Recent events have forced the Turkish Government to reassess the commitment of the Government of the US to the security of the Turkish Mission facilities and personnel," a statement posted on the Twitter account of the Turkish embassy in Washington DC said, closely mimicking the earlier US notification.

"In order to minimize the number of visitors to our diplomatic and consular missions in the US while this assessment proceeds, effective immediately we have suspended all visa services regarding the US citizens at our diplomatic and consular missions," it added.

The Turkish restrictions appeared to go further than a move by the US to suspend the processing of "non-immigrant" visas, a specific category that relates to tourism, medical treatment, business, temporary work or study.



Immigrant visa services are for those seeking to live in the US permanently.

A first version of the Turkish statement that was posted on the embassy's Twitter account on Sunday afternoon had said the measure would apply "to visas in passports."

But a later version said: "This measure will apply to sticker visas as well as e-Visas and border visas," leaving open the question of whether US travelers who already have visas would be allowed to enter Turkey.

The statement also specifically alluded to American citizens applying for visas from within the US, and was not clear whether it applied to those applying from other countries.