FX.co ★ Erdogan accuses US of 'stab in back'

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the US was seeking to "stab it in the back", the Turkish media reported.

"You act on one side as a strategic partner, but on the other, you fire bullets into the foot of your strategic partner. We are together in Nato and then you seek to stab your strategic partner in the back," Erdogan said.

According to him, the external pressure was aimed to crush Turkey’s sovereign power and make it refuse to protect its own interests. Erdogan described the latest plunge in the lira as an ‘economic siege’.

Turkish-US relations have been thrown into the crisis after the Trump administration imposed sanctions against Turkish ministers for detaining US pastor Andrew Brunson in Turkey.

Then Donald Trump announced a doubling of tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey, the move which sent the lira to new lows.