Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday said that the United States would levy more sanctions on the troubled Turkish economy if Ankara does not release an American pastor.

“We have put sanctions on several of their cabinet members,” Mnuchin told President Donald Trump in a cabinet meeting attended by the press. “We have more that we are planning to do if they don’t release him quickly.”

Trump prefaced Mnuchin’s remarks by saying that Turkey had not been a very good friend.

Referring to imprisoned pastor Andrew Brunson, Trump said “they have a great Christian pastor there, he’s a very innocent man.”

A Turkish court on Wednesday rejected a new appeal to free US pastor Andrew Brunson, whose detention has sparked a major row between Turkey and the United States, local media reported.

The court in the western city of Izmir ruled that Brunson, who faces 35 years in jail over terror and espionage charges, will remain under house arrest, the state television TRT reported.

Source: english.alarabiya.net