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Pope Francis said Monday every effort must be made to ensure the culture of the Catholic Church prevents future clerical sexual abuse of children and to make sure that if such abuses do take place, they cannot be covered up.

The pope’s comments came in a letter to the world’s Catholics in response to the latest revelations of abuses by clergy members.

Last week, a U.S. grand jury report said more than 300 predator priests had abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses over the span of 70 years.

“Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims,” Francis said in his letter.

He said with “shame and repentance” the Catholic Church acknowledges it did not act in a timely manner and realize the amount of damage the abusers have done to so many people.

Francis said “no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient.”

The church has long faced cases of sexual abuse by the clergy in many countries. In the past month alone, the pope accepted the resignation of an Australian archbishop convicted in May for covering up child abuse, as well as the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has also been accused of sexual abuse.

Francis noted in his letter ongoing efforts to address the problem and ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults while holding responsible those who commit abuses.

“We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future,” he wrote.

He said without the participation of all Catholics, the efforts to “uproot the culture of abuse” will fail.

“It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetuated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for the most vulnerable,” Pope Francis said.
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Shots were fired at a security booth outside the U.S. Embassy in Turkey’s capital early Monday, but U.S. officials said no one was hurt.

Private Ihlas news agency said four to five rounds were fired from a moving white car and targeted the booth outside Gate 6 at the embassy in Ankara. Police were searching for the car.

U.S. Embassy spokesman David Gainer thanked police for their “rapid response”‘ and said no injuries had been reported.

The U.S. mission is closed this week as Turkey celebrates the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Ties between Ankara and Washington have been strained over the case of an imprisoned American pastor, leading the U.S. to impose sanctions, and increased tariffs sent the Turkish lira tumbling last week.

Evangelical pastor Andrew Craig Brunson — currently under house arrest after more than 1 1/2 years in prison — is facing up to 35 years in prison if convicted of espionage and terror-related charges.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called for his immediate release and threatened more sanctions. The continued detention of a Turkish-American NASA scientist and three local consular staff members adds to the tensions.

Last week, the U.S. president signed a defense spending bill that includes delaying the delivery of F-35 fighter jets pending a Pentagon report. U.S. senators have been working to block their delivery in response to Brunson’s arrest and Turkey’s pledge to buy Russian S-400 missile systems.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a boycott on U.S.-made electronic products, with some citizens heeding his call and filming themselves breaking their iPhones. Turkey has also increased imports tariffs on some products.

 
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Italy’s firebrand interior minister is threatening to return to Libya 177 migrants who have been aboard an Italian coast guard ship for days following another standoff with Malta.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanded Sunday that other European countries take in the migrants after his Maltese counterpart, Michael Farrugia, insisted that the “only solution” is for the Diciotti ship to dock at the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

The Diciotti has been off Lampedusa after rescuing the migrants Aug. 16. Italy asked Malta to take them in, but Malta refused, saying the migrant boat wasn’t in distress and that the migrants declined Maltese assistance, preferring to continue toward Italy.

In a tweet Sunday, Farrugia accused Italy of rescuing the migrants in Maltese waters “purely to prevent them from entering Italian waters.”
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The death toll of Genoa’s bridge collapse has risen to 43 as rescuers confirm they found remains believed to be of a missing family.

Firefighters discovered the three bodies, reported to be those of a couple and their nine-year-old daughter, early Sunday inside a car extracted from the rubble of the viaduct.

All those reported missing after Tuesday’s collapse have now been accounted for, although rescuers say they will continue combing the wreckage.

The announcement followed the discovery Saturday of the body of a man in his 30s in the rubble and the death of another man in hospital.

Italy observed a national day of mourning Saturday for the victims of the tragedy.

Applause broke out at state funerals in Genoa as rescuers and members of the civil defense department arrived to take part in the service.

Authorities used an exhibition center in the area of the Genoa fairgrounds as a church.

Large screens were set up outside as Italians from all over the country and tourists turned out to follow the service. Many said they came out of solidarity with relatives of the victims because what happened could have happened to anyone.

The archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, presided over the solemn service. Italy’s top officials and politicians, including head of state Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, attended.

But not all the families of the victims agreed to take part. Some decided to bury their dead relatives in their towns of origin, while others declined to participate in anger at having lost their loved ones in an accident that may have been caused by poor design or improper maintenance.

President Sergio Mattarella, who visited the site of the disaster and the injured in the hospital before attending the service, has defined the bridge collapse as “absurd and frightening,” saying the tragedy “struck not only Genoa but the whole nation.”

The government has set up a commission to investigate the causes of the bridge collapse. The disaster sparked a huge debate in Italy about the state of the country’s infrastructure.

Autostrade per l’Italia, the company that manages Italy’s highway system, held a news conference Saturday in Genoa, maintaining it has always acted responsibly as the operator of the toll road. CEO Giovanni Castellucci said it was premature to respond to the government’s plans to revoke the company’s concession, but said his company could build a new bridge in eight months.

The Morandi viaduct dates from the 1960s and has been riddled with structural problems for decades, leading to expensive maintenance and criticism from engineering experts.
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Senior U.N. Human Rights officials condemn the decision by the Republika Srpska National Assembly in Bosnia and Herzegovina to take back its endorsement of a report acknowledging the massacre of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica.

U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, warns the decision by the Republika Srpska National Assembly to revoke its endorsement of the 2004 Srebrenica Commission Report is a step backwards for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He says it undermines the rule of law and efforts to achieve justice for victims of crimes committed against people of all ethnicities during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra-ad al-Hussein agrees.

He says this action will worsen the divisive, nationalistic rhetoric ahead of the general elections in October. His spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, says this decision will disrupt reconciliation efforts among the splintered communities.

“The 2004 Srebrenica Commission Report established that from the 10th to the 19th July 1995, between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosniaks went missing in the area of Srebrenica,” she said. “It also found that more than 1,000 Bosniaks were killed during this period. Two international courts have determined that this massacre of Bosnian Muslims constituted genocide.”

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina broke out after the breakup of Yugoslavia, pitting Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims against each other. When it ended in 1995, around 100,000 people had been killed and more than two million displaced, making this the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II.

High Commissioner Zeid accuses the Srpska Parliament of withdrawing from the agreement for political gain ahead of the October elections. He says he fears it will increase existing tensions, divisions and mistrust in the country.

 
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A driver whose car collided with several people before crashing outside Britain’s Parliament has been charged with attempted murder.

Police say 29-year-old Salih Khater was charged Saturday with trying to kill police officers and members of the public.

Three people were injured when Khater — a British citizen originally from Sudan — hit a group of cyclists before colliding with a security barrier guarded by police outside Parliament on Tuesday.

The incident sparked a huge police response. Last year London was hit by several attacks in which vehicles were used as weapons.

Police say that because of the methodology and iconic location, the case is being treated as terrorism, although Khater has not been charged with a terrorist offense.

Khater is due to appear in a London court on Monday. 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called on Europe to financially contribute to the reconstruction of Syria to allow millions of refugees to return home.

“We need to strengthen the humanitarian effort in the Syrian conflict,” he said ahead of a meeting with his German counterpart Angela Merkel at the government retreat of Meseberg castle 70kms (45 miles) north of Berlin.

“By that, I mean above all humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, and help the regions where refugees living abroad can return to.”

There are currently one million refugees in Jordan, the same number in Lebanon, and three million in Turkey, Putin said.

Germany has accepted hundreds of thousands of migrants since 2015 — the height of the migration crisis — which has weakened Angela Merkel politically and split the European Union.

“This is potentially a huge burden for Europe,” Putin said.

“That’s why we have to do everything to get these people back home,” he added, emphasizing the need to properly restore basic services such as water supplies and healthcare.

Merkel said the priority in Syria was “to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe”, but did not give any further details.

Ukraine stalemate

Also on the agenda for the two leaders is the Ukraine crisis, which “unfortunately does not advance at all,” Putin said.

The Minsk agreements, a peace process sponsored by Germany and France aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, is at a standstill, Merkel said, pointing at the absence of a “stable ceasefire.”

A United Nations mission on the ground, which will be discussed during the talks, “could perhaps play a pacifying role” in the region, she said.

Earlier, Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said he was “relatively optimistic about the chances of a United Nations mission,” telling the Die Welt newspaper: “We want to give a new dynamic to the Minsk process.”

Russia is accused by Kiev and Westerners of militarily supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine, which it denies.

Economic cooperation, particularly over energy, was also billed as a central theme in the discussions.

Russia and Germany are partners in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a project criticized by US President Donald Trump due to Berlin’s reliance on Moscow.

Ukraine worries that the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany will transport gas now flowing through its territory and deprive it of crucial transit fees.

Russia has shut off gas supplies to Ukraine in the past, having knock-on effects in the European Union.

“Ukraine must, in my opinion, play a role in the transit of gas to Europe,” even after the start of Nord Stream 2 in 2019, the German Chancellor said.

Putin once again defended the project “which addresses the growing demand of the European economy for energy resources”.

“I want to stress here that Nord Stream 2 is only an economic project and it does not close the door to the continuation of gas transit through the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

In July, Putin assured that Russia was willing to keep Russian flowing through Ukraine after the pipeline was commissioned, but without going into details on volumes or tariffs. 
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It’s Italy’s national day of mourning Saturday after the collapse of the Morandi highway bridge Tuesday in the port city of Genoa killed 42 people.

Three more bodies were recovered by rescuers overnight and Italian state radio reported another was body found Saturday morning. Authorities said all those missing have now been accounted for.

But not all the families of the victims agreed to take part.

Applause broke out at the funerals as rescuers and members of the civil defense department arrived to take part in the service. Authorities used an exhibition center in the area of the Genoa fair grounds as a church.

The building was adorned with flowers and photographs for the occasion. In front of the altar and below a large crucifix, 18 coffins were covered with white roses, including those of two Albanian Moslems who died, and a small white casket for the youngest victim, an eight-year-old who died alongside his parents.

Large screens were set up outside the exhibition center for many others – Italians from all over the country and tourists – who turned out to follow the service. Many said they came out of solidarity with relatives of the victims because what happened could have happened to anyone.

The archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, celebrated the solemn service. Italy’s top officials and politicians, including head of state Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, attended the ceremony.

Family members of other victims decided to bury the dead in their towns of origin, some declining to participate in the state funerals in anger at having lost their loved ones in an accident that may have been caused by poor design or improper maintenance.

The president, who visited the site of the disaster and the injured in the hospital before attending the service, has defined the bridge collapse as “absurd and frightening,” saying the tragedy “struck not only Genoa but the whole nation.”

Cardinal Bagnasco, who presided at the service, said, “The collapse of the Morandi bridge over the Poncedera River caused a rift in the heart of Genoa. The wound is a deep one and consists above all of the endless pain for those who have lost their lives and the missing, for their relatives, for the inured, for the many displaced. Many have been the signs of shock and closeness that have come from not only from Italy but from all over the world.”

In his homily, the cardinal added that Genoa will not surrender and will continue to fight despite the huge loss of its most important artery. Applause broke out when the cardinal thanked firefighters for their tireless work. He spoke of the strength of the injured and expressed hope that the displaced may soon find another home.

The government has set up a commission to investigate the causes of the bridge collapse. The disaster sparked a huge debate in Italy about the state of the country’s infrastructures.

Autostrade per l’Italia, the company that manages Italy’s highway system, held a news conference Saturday in Genoa, promising it would provide details about measures it will be taking to support victims’ families and the hundreds of people that had to evacuate their homes following the deadly collapse.

 
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Turkey’s currency this month has suffered heavy falls triggered by U.S.-Turkish tensions over the ongoing detention of an American pastor. Washington’s threat to impose new economic sanctions sparked another steep currency drop Friday. Dorian Jones reports on the economic fall out for people in Istanbul.
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A decade-long dispute between Kosovo and Serbia is compelling both countries to consider a territorial swap along ethnic lines — a move that has long been opposed by both Brussels and Washington. But the leaders of both Balkan countries say redrawing the borders could help them resolve their differences and advance in their quest for European integration.  

Experts have mixed opinions over whether such a deal is workable or even desirable. 

Ten years after Kosovo declared independence, there has been little to no progress between the two countries in settling their disputes. Kosovo considers itself a sovereign nation, though Serbia refuses to recognize it as such. Both countries want to join the European Union, but Brussels will not allow it until disagreements over Kosovo’s sovereignty are settled. 

WATCH: Trade of territory by Kosovo, Serbia brings concerns

Now, Kosovo’s President Hashi Thaci and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic have suggested a deal to trade territory or change borders that could spark a breakthrough. Some experts caution, however, such a move could create myriad problems. 

“It would create instability, it would be dangerous. It could spark violence in Kosovo as well as in Serbia,” said David L. Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. 

The proposed exchange would involve Serbia getting part of northern Kosovo, an area with a mostly Serb population, and Kosovo getting Serbia’s Presevo Valley, inhabited by a majority of ethnic Albanians. It also would mean the change would be along ethnic lines — anathema in Western thinking. 

“The principle of pluralism and democracy is something that is a cornerstone of U.S. policy. It’s also a cornerstone of Europe’s approach to countries that aspire to membership,” Phillips said. 

But David Kanin, adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University and a former CIA senior analyst, notes that Europe has a history of changing borders and population movements. 

“That has not stopped. Every change in Yugoslavia since the old Yugoslavia collapsed has been about changing borders, moving people around, some supported by the West, some opposed,” he said.

Diplomatic gap?

In the past, both Brussels and Washington have shot down the idea of redrawing borders along ethnic lines, but this time it appears they are not in agreement. 

The European Union has not openly commented on this issue. The office of the EU’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, has not responded to VOA questions about this issue. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected any changes to the borders, saying, “The territorial integrity of the states of the Western Balkans has been established and is inviolable.”

The U.S. position has been more ambiguous. In a statement to VOA’s Albanian Service, the State Department said the solution should come from the parties themselves. It also said the parties should show flexibility, but stopped short of rejecting the idea of a border change. 

“If Kosovo and Serbia were able to agree on a settlement that would allow for permanent peace that would allow for mutual recognition, I think that would help settle politics in Serbia in some ways. It would give Kosovo a way forward,” said Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. 

Phillips, a former State Department senior adviser, suggested a lack of clarity does not signal a new policy.

“The U.S. government does not have a coherent policy toward Kosovo. It doesn’t pay any attention to the Western Balkans. I don’t think we should read too much into these vague and ambiguous statements. Right now U.S. policy remains as it always has been. It recognizes Kosovo within its current frontiers. That hasn’t changed.”

Benefits, ramifications

Even if the idea is officially included in the EU-mediated Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, many questions remain, including whether Serbia should recognize Kosovo first and what that would portend.

“The discussion right now around partition, as noisy as it is, is dealing with the secondary issue of who gets what territory,” said Kanin. “The question of Kosovo’s sovereignty is the central issue and that will remain open as long as it is not recognized by Serbia and by the five outstanding EU members. And I see no sign that this is going to change.”   

EU members Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Romania and Greece still have not recognized Kosovo’s independence.

“Here it is a disservice to everybody in the Balkans, first of all the Kosovars, that their state is not recognized by Serbia, that they are not recognized by all members of the European Union and therefore they’re blocked in some of their relationships with the EU,” said Volker.

Experts and former diplomats warned that rethinking borders in the Balkans would pose a risk to stability in the region. 

“If the EU isn’t prepared to mediate a deal that allows Serbia to recognize Kosovo within its current frontiers, then Albanians will start thinking of unification of Albanian territories and creating an Albanian state that encompasses lands where all Albanians live,” Phillips predicted.

That concern is amplified, given the sizable Albanian minority in Macedonia, a country dealing with its own agreement about a name change with Greece. And Serbs in Bosnia already have said if Kosovo gets a U.N. seat, they will request the same.

The latest debate suggests there are no clear-cut prescriptions for a region attempting to shed the vexing legacy of the 1990s conflicts.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday for talks about the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, as well as the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project that has drawn U.S. ire.

Putin arrives in Germany after a stop at an Austrian vineyard to attend Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl’s wedding to entrepreneur Wolfgang Meilinger.

Merkel warned on Friday against expecting too much from her discussions with Putin at the government’s Meseberg palace, but said the two countries needed to remain in “permanent dialogue” on the long list of problems they face.

“It’s a working meeting from which no specific results are expected,” she told reporters. The two leaders last met in Sochi in May and struggled to overcome differences.

But both Juergen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel’s conservative bloc, and Achim Post, a senior member of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in the coalition government, were more upbeat.

“We can be cautiously optimistic,” Hardt told the Stuttgarter Zeitung and Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspapers in an interview published Saturday. “The Russian president has maneuvered himself into a dead end on Syria and eastern Ukraine, and needs international partners. For that he has to move.”

A senior German official told the papers: “There has been some movement,” but gave no details.

Post said in a statement that he expected both Merkel and Putin to look for pragmatic solutions based on common interests. “In a world that is increasingly uncertain, we must speak particularly with difficult partners like Russia,” he said.

Russia and the West remain at loggerheads over Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014 and the ensuing conflict between Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east and the Ukrainian army.

On Syria, Germany wants Putin to finalize a lasting cease-fire there in agreement with the United States. Merkel on Friday said a four-way meeting on Syria involving Germany, Russia, Turkey and France was possible.

Germany is also under strong pressure from the United States to halt work on the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will carry gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

The United States says it will increase Germany’s dependence on Russia for energy. Ukraine fears the pipeline will allow Russia to cut it off from the gas transit business. Germany’s eastern European neighbors, nervous of Russian encroachment, have also raised concerns about the project.

Merkel and Putin will each make statements at 1600 GMT on Saturday before the start of the talks. They do not plan to take questions.
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The United States says Turkey faces more U.S. sanctions if it refuses to release an American pastor held on allegations of helping the organizers of the failed 2016 coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States says Ankara has no evidence for the allegations and has held the pastor for too long. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday the United States is ready to hit Ankara with more sanctions if it does not release the American soon. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office on Thursday said had it demanded a 15-year prison sentence for former President Viktor Yanukovych, accusing him of “betraying his nation” to Russia. 

Pro-Moscow Yanukovych has lived in exile in Russia since he was ousted in a Western-backed popular uprising in 2014, and it is highly unlikely he will ever face trial as the two countries remain locked in a bitter standoff.

“Viktor Yanukovych betrayed his nation. He betrayed his army. At the most difficult time for the country and the people,” prosecutors said in court, according to a statement.

“He left the country at the mercy of fate and fled into the arms of the aggressor,” it said. “Without a drop of remorse, in order to please the enemy, he did everything in his power for Ukrainian territory to be seized by the aggressor.”

Yanukovych sparked massive protests when he ditched an association accord with the European Union and then fled to Russia in early 2014 after a bloody crackdown in Kyiv failed to quell the demonstrations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin later revealed this was made possible by a special operation organized by Moscow to exfiltrate Yanukovych. 

After Yanukovych fled Ukraine, Moscow annexed the country’s Crimean Peninsula and war erupted between Kyiv and Russian-backed rebels in the east of the country.

Since then, the fighting has cost 10,000 lives despite repeated international efforts to forge a lasting cease-fire.
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Finance Minister Berat Albayrak assured international investors on Thursday that Turkey would emerge stronger from its currency crisis, insisting its banks were healthy and signalling it could ride out a dispute with the United States.

In a conference call with thousands of investors and economists, Albayrak — who is President Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law — said Turkey fully understood and recognised all its domestic challenges but was dealing with what he described as a market anomaly.

With Ankara locked in a complex rift with Washington, he also played down a decision by President Donald Trump to double tariffs on imports of Turkish metals. Washington later said it was ready to impose further economic sanctions on Turkey.

Many countries had been the target of similar U.S. trade measures, Albayrak said, and Turkey would navigate this period with other parties such as Germany, Russia and China.

Turkey, he said, has no plans to seek help from the International Monetary Fund or impose capital controls to stop money flowing abroad in response to the recent collapse of its lira currency.  Before he spoke, the lira strengthened more than 3 percent, despite signs that the dispute with the United States is as wide as ever.

The lira held steady during Albayrak’s conference call but later weakened when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States was prepared to levy more sanctions on Turkey if detained American pastor Andrew Brunson was not freed.

The Turkish currency was trading at 5.85 at 1740 GMT, more than 1 percent stronger on the day. Turkey’s sovereign dollar bonds extended their gains.

The lira hit a record low of 7.24 to the dollar earlier this week, down 40 percent this year, as investors fretted over Erdogan’s influence over monetary policy and the row with the United States.

Turkey’s foreign minister said Ankara did not want any problems with Washington.

“We can solve issues with the United States very easily, but not with the current approach,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara late on Thursday.

Facing Turkey’s gravest currency crisis since 2001 in his first month in the job, Albayrak has the daunting task of persuading investors that the economy is not hostage to political interference.

Albayrak, a 40-year-old former company executive with a doctorate in finance, said Turkey would not hesitate to provide support to the banking sector. The banks were capable of managing the volatility, and there had been no major flow of cash out of deposits lately, he added.

Qatari pledge

Economists gave Albayrak’s comments a qualified welcome, and praised his ambition to get inflation down into single figures next year from above 15 percent now. But his father-in-law’s opposition to higher interest rates may complicate that quest.

“He said all the right things, but it’s one thing saying them and another thing doing them,” said Sailesh Lad at AXA Investment Managers. “He said capital controls weren’t part of the agenda, and never will be. I think a lot of the market liked hearing that.”

The lira gained some support from the announcement late on Wednesday of a Qatari pledge to invest $15 billion in Turkey. Trump has used trade tariffs in a series of disputes ranging from with Turkey and China to the European Union.

In a sign that Turkey may hope to make common cause with other affected countries, Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone on Thursday, discussing developing economic and trade ties and boosting bilateral investment, a Turkish presidential source said.

Albayrak will also meet his German counterpart Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Sept. 21.

However, in a potential complication, a foreign ministry source in Berlin said Turkish police had arrested a German citizen. ARD TV reported the man was accused of “terrorist propaganda” after criticising the government on social media.

In another element of the row with Washington, a U.S. court sentenced a senior executive of state-owned Turkish lender Halkbank to 32 months in prison in May for taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. That case has increased speculation that the bank itself could be fined for sanctions-busting.

Halkbank has said all of its transactions were lawful and Albayrak played down the risk. “We are not expecting any fines on Halkbank for sure,” he said. “But hypothetically speaking, …if one of our public banks need help, the government will stand strong by it for sure.”

The White House said on Wednesday that it would not remove steel tariffs on Turkey, appearing to give Ankara little incentive to work for the release of Brunson, a pastor on trial in Turkey on terrorism charges.

Washington wants the evangelical Christian freed but Turkish officials say the case is a matter for the courts.

The pastor row is one of several between the NATO allies, including diverging interests in Syria and U.S. objections to Ankara’s ambition to buy Russian defence systems, that have contributed to instability in Turkish financial markets.

Economic war

Erdogan has repeatedly told Turks to exchange gold and hard currency into lira, saying the country was involved in an economic war with enemies.

However, Turks appeared not to be heeding his appeal. Central bank data showed foreign currency deposits held by local investors rose to $159.9 billion in the week to Aug. 10, from $158.6 billion a week earlier.

Erdogan has called for a boycott of U.S. electronic goods and Turkish media have given extensive coverage to anti-U.S. protests, including videos on social media showing Turks apparently burning dollar bills and destroying iPhones.
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Rescuers continue their search for possible survivors and bodies of victims of Tuesday’s highway bridge collapse in Italy. The death toll is at 38, but authorities say some people are still unaccounted for and no one is prepared to call off the search and rescue operation. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes near parts of the bridge that remained standing.

The city of Genoa’s chief prosecutor has said there may still be 10 to 20 people missing and not all the recovered bodies have been identified. Sniffer dogs and large earth-movers are being used to search around large chunks of concrete in the debris of the collapsed bridge. Family members of those unaccounted for still hope a miracle may have kept their loved ones alive.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been evacuated from homes near parts of the bridge left standing and were told they may never be able to go back to their homes. Authorities said the homes might have to be torn down, along with the remaining bridge, which will then be rebuilt.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte met with Deputy Prime Ministers Matteo Salvini and Luigi di Maio, and the infrastructure minister, Danilo Toninelli, to take immediate measures following the disaster.

Conte declared a state of emergency for the northern port city of Genoa for 12-months and earmarked $5.6 million from national emergency funds for removal of the remaining parts of the bridge and re-developing the road system. He also said Italians would observe a national day of mourning Saturday when state funerals will be held for the victims.

The prime minister also announced the government has begun the process of revoking the contract of the company managing Italy’s highway system. The firm, Autostrade per l’Italia, said it carried out regular maintenance and safety checks on the bridge that gave reassuring results.

A criminal investigation has been launched to ascertain the cause of the collapse. Prosecutors are investigating negligence in maintenance and the bridge’s design.

Genoa chief prosecutor Francesco Cozzi said it is a disaster caused by human failure and those responsible will be liable for manslaughter.

Experts like Antonio Brencich, a professor of construction at Genoa University, had warned two years ago the bridge was in need of being replaced, but his message was not heeded. Since its completion in 1967, the number of vehicles and weight load on the bridge each day significantly increased.

Local residents had also long complained the bridge was unsafe.

Speaking on national television, this Genoa resident said it was an expected tragedy because every day she traveled on it she could feel it move. She added that there was always some repair going on. Even in recent days, workmen were busy on the bridge.
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The U.S. continued to press Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to release detained American Pastor Andrew Brunson, after a Turkish court Wednesday rejected a second legal appeal to release him from house arrest. And Turkey is pushing back hard, sharply raising tariffs on a range of American goods in retaliation to the tariffs imposed last week by President Trump. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department on deteriorating relations with a U.S. NATO ally.
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Two U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets squared off in simulated dogfights with two of Norway’s expanding fleet of F-35 aircraft Wednesday as part of an exercise aimed at strengthening the NATO alliance and increasing its deterrent power.

The two U.S. F-22s are among 13 in Europe for a series of short-term deployments in places such as Greece and Poland, with further training missions planned in undisclosed locations in coming days.

The Norwegian deployment lasted one day but will lay the groundwork for NATO allies as they work to integrate their stealth warfare capabilities, Colonel Leslie Hauck, chief of the fifth generation integration division at the U.S. Air Force’s headquarters in Europe, told reporters in Norway.

The deployment is part of U.S. efforts to reassure European allies after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

F-35s arriving in Europe

Growing numbers of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35s are arriving in Europe as the world’s most advanced warplane and most expensive weapons program matures following a raft of cost increases and technical challenges in its early years.

“Every training opportunity that we have betters our readiness for any potential adversary of the future,” Hauck said at the Orland air base, home to six of Norway’s expected 52 F-35s.

Hauck leads a new office at Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany, that is working to ensure a smooth transition for about 40 F-35s scheduled to be in Europe by year’s end. The first of which are set to arrive in 2021.

Next month, a group of senior officials from the United States and seven other F-35 operator countries — Norway, Denmark, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Britain and the Netherlands — will meet to compare notes on the new warplane, which was first used in combat by Israel in May.

Better battlefield overview

The United States has more than 150 of the aircraft, whose sensors pilots say give them the most extensive overview of a battlefield of any combat jet available.

Norwegian Air Force Major Morten Hanche, who piloted one of the Norwegian F-35s, said the mock fight with the F-22s was great practice, especially since the F-35s generally surprise and overpower other nonstealth aircraft.

He declined to name the winning aircraft, saying only: “The F-22 is a very formidable opponent.”
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The United States said Wednesday that Bosnia’s autonomous Serb-dominated region was attempting to deny history by revoking a report that concluded that Bosnian Serb forces killed about 8,000 Muslims in and around Srebrenica during the country’s 1992-95 war.

The U.S. State Department said adoption by the Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) government of the 2004 report on the Srebrenica genocide had been an important reconciliation step.

Reconciliation step reversed

“The August 14 session of the Republika Srpska National Assembly is a step in the wrong direction,” a State Department statement said.

“Attempts to reject or amend the report on Srebrenica are part of wider efforts to revise the facts of the past war, to deny history, and to politicize tragedy. It is in the interest of the citizens of Republika Srpska to reverse the trend of revering convicted war criminals as heroes, and to ensure their crimes continue to be publicly rejected.”

A vote Tuesday by lawmakers in Bosnia’s Serb Republic to revoke the 2004 report was initiated by the region’s nationalist President Milorad Dodik, and some analysts say it is the latest issue used by Serb ruling parties to mobilize voters around the nationalist agenda ahead of elections in October.

Dodik, an advocate of the Serb region’s secession from Bosnia, has always rejected rulings by two war crimes courts, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and The International Court of Justice, that the Srebrenica atrocity qualified as genocide.

Official says scope overblown

Though acknowledging a crime occurred, Dodik says the numbers of those killed had been exaggerated in the 2004 report and it should have included Serb victims.

The parliament concluded that a new independent international commission should be formed to determine the damages suffered by all peoples in the Srebrenica region.
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The White House on Wednesday condemned Turkey for boosting tariffs on U.S. imports, the latest confrontation between the two NATO allies.

Ankara imposed stiffer levies on U.S. cars, alcohol, coal and other products — $533 million in new tariffs — in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum exported to the United States.

The tit-for-tat tariffs came amid Turkey’s rejection of a U.S. demand that it release American pastor Andrew Brunson, detained on espionage and terrorism-related charges.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said “the tariffs from Turkey are certainly regrettable and a step in the wrong direction. The tariffs that the United States placed on Turkey were out of national security interest. Theirs are out of retaliation.”

Sanders said even if Brunson is released, U.S. tariffs on steel would remain.

She said Turkey had treated Brunson “who we know to be a very good person and a strong Christian who has done nothing wrong, very unfairly, very badly, and it’s something that we won’t forget.”

With the dispute between the U.S. and Turkey seeming to escalate by the day, the value of Turkey’s lira currency against the dollar has plummeted, but Sanders rejected any blame on the U.S.’s part.

She said the U.S. was “monitoring the situation.” But she added that Turkey’s economic problems “are a part of a long-term trend, something of its own making and not the result of any actions the United States has taken.”

The new Turkish tariffs came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would boycott U.S. electronic goods, singling out Apple’s iPhones. Erdogan has blamed the U.S. for the fall of the lira, but refused to budge on Trump’s demand for Brunson’s release.

Meanwhile, Qatar said it would make a $15 billion investment in Turkey to help the country’s ailing economy.

The investment, which will be directed to Turkey’s banks and financial markets, was announced after Qatar’s Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani held talks in Ankara with Erdogan.

Erdogan’s economic role

Turkey’s lira has plummeted nearly 40 percent this year due to concerns over Erdogan’s growing influence on the economy. The lira has recovered somewhat from recent lows as the government cut the daily limit in the exchange of currencies with foreign countries.

Turkey and Qatar historically have been good diplomatic partners. Turkey supported Qatar after Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries cut diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Qatar last year. The Arab states accused Qatar of financing terrorism, a charge Qatar denies.
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In Paris, there is an experiment under way to find an environmental solution to the unsightly urban problem of men urinating in the street. However, the project has prompted strong reactions from some residents and visitors.

The city has turned to open-air street urinals, called “uritrottoirs” and “pavement urinals,” which are similar to planters with an opening in the front and a floral display on top. The receptacles contain straw, which transforms into compost for later use in parks and gardens.

Some see the pavement urinals as an innovation that might help rid the French capital of unpleasant sights and smells, while others complain that the bright red boxes are a blight on the city’s picturesque streets.

“It is definitely a desirable and historic neighborhood, but seeing people urinating right in front of your door is not the nicest thing,” said a 28-year-old resident.

However, at least one visitor sees advantages.

“It’s a little bit open … in the open space,” said Jonathan, who is from the U.S. “So some people might feel uncomfortable. But, again, if you need to go, it’s better than going on the street.”

The Reuters news agency reports that reaction to the urinals has been mixed, prompting the local government to reconsider the project in September.
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Turkey on Wednesday announced tariff hikes on a range of U.S. goods in the latest back-and-forth move amid a deteriorating relationship between the two countries.

The extra tariffs apply to imports of vehicles, alcohol, coal, rice and cosmetics.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Twitter the increases were being done “within the framework of the principle of reciprocity in retaliation for the conscious economic attacks by the United States.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing the United States of waging a targeted economic war on his country, and on Tuesday he proposed a boycott of U.S. electronic goods.

“If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung elsewhere. In our own country we have Vestel,” said Erdogan.

Asked how U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration would react to any such Turkish boycott, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders replied during Tuesday afternoon’s briefing, “I certainly don’t have a policy announcement on that at this point.” 

Trump administration sources say further sanctions against Turkey are under active consideration. But Sanders declined to say how the U.S. government plans to apply more pressure on Ankara, which repeatedly has ignored calls from Trump and others to free Christian pastor Andrew Brunson. 

Turkey accuses Brunson of espionage and is holding him under house arrest pending his trial. 

The chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Turkey, Jeffrey Hovenier, visited Brunson on Tuesday and called for his case — and those of others detained in Turkey — to be resolved “without delay” and in a “fair and transparent manner.”

National Security Adviser John Bolton met at the White House on Monday with Turkish ambassador Serdar Kilic, but the discussion reportedly did not result in any substantive progress.

Trump, who has called Brunson’s detention a “total disgrace,” last Friday doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum exports in order to increase pressure on Erdogan. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Turkey’s ministers of Justice and Interior in response to the continued detention of the pastor, who has lived in the country for 20 years and heads an evangelical congregation of about two dozen people in the port city of Izmir. 

The escalating dispute between the two countries has exacerbated Turkey’s economic crisis, pushing the lira to record lows. The Turkish currency has lost about 40 percent of its value this year against the U.S. dollar.

Erdogan has called on Turks to exchange their dollars for lira in order to shore up the domestic currency.

In a joint statement Tuesday, Turkish business groups called on the government to institute tighter monetary policy in order to combat the currency crisis. They also said Turkey should work to resolve the situation with the United States diplomatically while also improving relations with another major trading partner, the European Union.

The Turkish central bank has pledged to take “all necessary measures” to stabilize the country’s economy to make sure the banks have all the money they need. But world stock traders were dismayed the bank did not raise interest rates, which is what many economists believe is necessary to ease the crisis.

The United States and Turkey also have diverging interests over Syria, which is enmeshed in a protracted civil war. 

The differences are drawing Turkey closer to Russia, they key adversary of NATO but a country supplying more than half of Turkey’s gas.

Turkey has agreed to buy S-400 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, an unprecedented move by a NATO member, which has raised objections from members of both parties of the U.S. Congress and the Trump administration. 

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, voiced support for Turkey during a joint news conference with his Turkish counterpart in Ankara on Tuesday, stating both countries plan to switch from dollars to national currencies for their mutual trade.

“We view the policy of sanctions as unlawful and illegitimate, driven mostly by a desire to dominate everywhere and in everything, dictate policies and call shots in international affairs,” said Lavrov, predicting “such a policy can’t be a basis for normal dialogue and can’t last long.

Lavrov, alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, also declared, “We are at a turning point, without exaggeration, in world history” from dominance by a single power toward a multipolar environment. 
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Two Greek soldiers facing espionage charges in Turkey are due to fly home early on Wednesday after a provincial court released them, in a ruling Athens said would help to improve strained ties between the two NATO allies.

The soldiers crossed into Turkey in March, in what Greece said was an accident while they were following the trail of suspected illegal migrants.

But a court in the western province of Edirne ordered their detention the same month on suspicion of attempted military espionage.

The same court ruled for their release on Tuesday after they said in a defense statement they had crossed the border by mistake, state news agency Anadolu said. 

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras welcomed the ruling.

“The release of the two Greek officers is an act of justice which will contribute to friendship, good neighbourly relations and stability in the region,” his office said in a statement.

The conditions of their release were not immediately clear, though Greece said it was sending an aircraft to pick them up.

The prime minister’s office said his plane would fly them back to Thessaloniki, where they would be received early on Wednesday by the defense minister.

Long-time regional rivals Turkey and Greece have been at odds over a host of issues from ethnically divided Cyprus to rights in the Aegean Sea.

Rhetoric has recently been ratcheted up on both sides, particularly after the collapse of peace talks in Cyprus in July 2017.

But following a meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a NATO summit in July, Tsipras said they had agreed to focus efforts on easing tensions in the Aegean.

Turkey has also called on Greece to return eight Turkish commandos who have sought asylum there after commandeering a helicopter to flee Turkey as a coup against Erdogan crumbled in July 2016. Turkey says they were involved, and has demanded they be returned to face trial.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he was delighted by news of the Greek soldiers’ imminent release.

“As I said (before) … Turkey has nothing to fear from its European neighbors. We want to see a democratic, stable and prosperous Turkey,” he posted on his Twitter feed.
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Royal Bank of Scotland will pay $4.9 billion to settle U.S. claims that it misled investors on residential mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2008, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

The Justice Department said the penalty was the largest ever imposed on a bank for misconduct leading up to the financial crisis. The bank announced in May that it had reached the settlement in principle.

The government alleges RBS misled investors in underwriting and issuing residential mortgage-backed securities, understating the risks behind many of the loans and providing inaccurate data.

“Despite assurances by RBS to its investors, RBS’s deals were backed by mortgage loans with a high risk of default,” Andrew E. Lelling, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

The Justice Department said that RBS disputes the allegations and does not admit wrongdoing, although the bank said in a statement it was happy to move on.

“There is no place for the sort of unacceptable behavior alleged by the DoJ at the bank we are building today,” RBS Chief Executive Ross McEwan said.

Dividend

In conjunction with the settlement, the bank also said it would be paying out an interim ordinary dividend of 2 pence per share on October 12 to shareholders.

The dividend is the bank’s first since its near-collapse and 45.5 billion-pound ($58 billion) state bailout in 2008.

The DOJ settlement and the resumption of dividends were two of the last big milestones in RBS’s decade-long journey back to normality. The looming Justice Department fine had weighed on the bank’s share price and prevented it from paying out to its shareholders.

Together with hefty cuts made to its investment bank and international business, a return to dividends could help shift the bank’s profile with investors from a risky bet into a safe, predictable value stock.

It also expands the market for future government share sales by enabling a broader array of investors to look at buying the bank’s shares.

Tuesday’s announcement marked the latest in a long-running series of massive settlements struck between the U.S. government and large global banks over conduct leading up to the financial crisis.

On August 1, the Justice Department struck a settlement with Wells Fargo, which agreed to pay $2.09 billion to settle similar claims.
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A bridge over an industrial area in the Italian city of Genova partially collapsed during a sudden and violent storm on Tuesday, leaving vehicles crushed in the rubble below.

Italian media reported that there were deaths, but Maria Luisa Catalano, a police official in Genoa, said that authorities were still involved in rescue efforts and did not yet know the number of victims or injured.

The disaster occurred on a highway that connects Italy to France and other vacation resorts on the eve of a major Italian holiday on Wednesday, Ferragosto, and traffic would have been heavier than usual as many Italians traveled to beaches or mountains.

The transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, called the collapse “an enormous tragedy.”

The private broadcaster Sky TG24 said that a 200-meter section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed over an industrial zone. Firefighters told The Associated Press that there are concerns about gas lines.

Photos published by the ANSA news agency on its website showed a huge gulf between two sections of the bridge.

Video captured the sound of a man screaming: “Oh god, oh, god.” Other images showed a green truck that had stopped just meters (yards) short of the gaping hole in the bridge.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said some 200 firefighters were responding to the accident.

“We are following minute by minute the situation for the bridge collapse in Genoa,” Salvini said on Twitter.

The Morandi Bridge was inaugurated in 1967. It is 90 meters (yards) high, just over a kilometer (about three-quarters of a mile) long, with the longest section between supports measuring 200 meters (yards).

The bridge is a main thoroughfare connecting the A10 highway that goes toward France and the A7 highway that continues north toward Milan.

ANSA said that authorities suspected that a structural weakness caused the collapse on Tuesday.
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Police in London say a man crashed a car into a group of pedestrians and cyclists before hitting a set of barriers outside of Britain’s Houses of Parliament on Tuesday, causing a number of injuries.

Authorities said officers arrested the male driver of the car on suspicion of terrorist offenses. They said there were no other people in the car, and that they did not find any weapons. They put his age as being in his late 20s.

“It certainly appears to be a deliberate act, but what the motivation is we can’t say,” London Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu told reporters.

Basu said the suspect is not cooperating with police as they try to establish both the man’s identity and motive.

He said that based on what investigators know so far, the suspect does not appear to be someone who was previously known to British counterterror or intelligence agencies.

President Donald Trump reacted to the incident on Twitter, saying “Another terrorist attack in London…These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!”

The London Ambulance Service said it treated and transported two people to a hospital, and that neither had injuries that were life-threatening. Basu later said one of the people was being treated for serious injuries, while the second had been released from the hospital. A third person was treated at the crash site.

The area around the crash was closed off, as was a subway station close to the parliament grounds. Parliament is not currently in session.

Last year, a man drove a car into pedestrians on nearby Westminster Bridge, killing four people there before stabbing to death a police officer outside parliament. Police shot that attacker dead.
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Vienna has dislodged Melbourne for the first time at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, strengthening the Austrian capital’s claim to being the world’s most pleasant city to live in.

The two metropolises have been neck and neck in the annual survey of 140 urban centers for years, with Melbourne clinching the title for the past seven editions. This year, a downgraded threat of militant attacks in western Europe as well as the city’s low crime rate helped nudge Vienna into first place.

Vienna regularly tops a larger ranking of cities by quality of life compiled by consulting firm Mercer. It is the first time it has topped the EIU survey, which began in its current form in 2004.

At the other end of the table, Damascus retained last place, followed by the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, and Lagos in Nigeria.

The survey does not include several of the world’s most dangerous capitals, such as Baghdad and Kabul.

“While in the past couple of years cities in Europe were affected by the spreading perceived threat of terrorism in the region, which caused heightened security measures, the past year has seen a return to normalcy,” the EIU said in a statement about the report published on Tuesday.

“A long-running contender to the title, Vienna has succeeded in displacing Melbourne from the top spot due to increases in the Austrian capital’s stability category ratings,” it said, referring to one of the index’s five headline components.

Vienna and Melbourne scored maximum points in the healthcare, education and infrastructure categories. But while Melbourne extended its lead in the culture and environment component, that was outweighed by Vienna’s improved stability ranking.

Osaka, Calgary and Sydney completed the top five in the survey, which the EIU says tends to favor medium-sized cities in wealthy countries, often with relatively low population densities. Much larger and more crowded cities tend to have higher crime rates and more strained infrastructure, it said.

London for instance ranks 48th.

Vienna, once the capital of a large empire rather than today’s small Alpine republic, has yet to match its pre-World War I population of 2.1 million. Its many green spaces include lakes with popular beaches and vineyards with sweeping views of the capital. Public transport is cheap and efficient.

In addition to the generally improved security outlook for western Europe, Vienna benefited from its low crime rate, the survey’s editor Roxana Slavcheva said.

“One of the sub-categories that Vienna does really well in is the prevalence of petty crime … It’s proven to be one of the safest cities in Europe,” she said.
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The Turkish lira has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, 20 percent just last week, amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Turkey, and international investors’ concerns over the economy.  For Turkey, the dramatic collapse of the currency signal fears for the future, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

Fruit and vegetable sellers, along with fishmongers, try to drum up business in Istanbul’s old Kadikoy market.  But trade is slow. Most people just look and walk on.

Organic shopkeeper Meltem worries for the future.

She says she is pessimistic about the future because prices will rise and the ability of people to purchase will decrease. She adds that as money in their pockets decreases, people in hardship will buy much less than before.

The fear of plummeting currency values, which continued on markets Monday, will stoke Turkey’s already double-digit inflation, which appears to be the top concern among shoppers.  Turkey relies heavily on imports, especially for energy.

Thirty-year-old Tariq, a teacher doing his weekly shopping, says he is cutting back on spending as he prepares for difficult times ahead.

He says the lira has fallen heavily and predicts unbelievable inflation because Turkey imports so much.  He says everybody in Turkey is afraid the coming inflation, especially for heating bills, will make this winter hard.

Across the street, fishmonger Huseyin proudly displays what he claims is the finest turbot in Istanbul and tries to be more positive. He acknowledges there will be problems. 

He says he does not have much to do with dollars, because if more fish are caught, they are cheaper, if less they are more expensive. But he says buyers may be affected if they are having economic difficulties.  He says if there is a good quantity of fish, then he will keep selling.

Shopkeeper Meltem warns of economic uncertainty ahead.

She says the future does not look good, because when people are hungry, they will be tempted to steal and may choose illegal means to survive.  She said things will not be any good. Many stores are closing because there is no trade anymore.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday an international conspiracy is responsible for undermining the currency, but says the financial fundamentals of the economy remain strong, and order will soon return to the markets.  

Such claims have been met with skepticism by international investors, while many economists warn the damage may have already been done to the economy, and difficult times lie ahead. 
…

Turkey’s central bank failed to halt the slide of the country’s lira currency on Monday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States of purposely trying to damage his country’s economy.

“We are together in NATO and then you seek to stab your strategic partner in the back. Can such a thing be accepted?” Erdogan said in the capital, Ankara.

The Turkish lira has plunged 40 percent this year, dropping 16 percent Friday and tumbling another seven percent Monday, trading at 6.9 to the dollar, up slightly from its low point.

The Turkish central bank said it would take “all necessary measures” to stabilize the country’s economy to make sure the banks have all the money they need. But world stock traders were dismayed the bank did not raise interest rates, which is what many economists believe is necessary to ease the crisis.

U.S. President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum exports last Friday, in part a response to Turkey refusing to release American pastor Andrew Brunson, whom Turkey accuses of espionage.

Brunson has been detained under house arrest pending his trial. Trump has called the preacher’s detention a “total disgrace.”

Erdogan said Turkey is facing an “economic siege,” calling the decline of the lira an “attack against our country.” Yet he remained optimistic, saying “it is not at all like we sank and we are finished .The dynamics of the Turkish economy are solid, strong and sound and will continue to be so.”

On Sunday, speaking to political supporters Erdogan said “the aim of the operation is to make Turkey surrender in all areas, from finance to politics. We are once again facing a political, underhand[ed] plot. With God’s permission we will overcome this.”

“What is the reason for all this storm in a tea cup?” he said.”There is no economic reason for this … This is called carrying out an operation against Turkey.”

Erdogan renewed his call for Turks to sell dollars and buy lira to boost the currency, while telling business owners to not stockpile the American currency.

“I am specifically addressing our manufacturers: Do not rush to the banks to buy dollars,” he said. “Do not take a stance saying, ‘We are bankrupt, we are done, we should guarantee ourselves.’ If you do that, that would be wrong. You should know that to keep this nation standing is … also the manufacturers’ duty.”

Erdogan signaled he was not looking to offer concessions to the United States or financial markets.

“We will give our answer, by shifting to new markets, new partnerships and new alliances,” he said.

Erdogan has in recent years built closer ties with countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. “Some close the doors and some others open new ones,” he said.

He indicated Turkey’s relationship with Washington was imperiled.

“We can only say ‘goodbye’ to anyone who sacrifices its strategic partnership and a half-century alliance with a country of 81 million for the sake of relations with terror groups,” he said.”You dare to sacrifice 81-million Turks for a priest who is linked to terror groups?”

If convicted, Brunson, the pastor, faces a prison term of 35 years.
…