BELGRADE/ANKARA: Turkey will boycott meetings with the US ambassador to Ankara as it no longer recognizes the envoy as the US representative in the country, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday, stepping up a diplomatic row.
“We have not agreed and are not agreeing to this ambassador making farewell visits with ministers, the Parliament speaker and myself,” Erdogan said of US Ambassador John Bass, who is shortly to leave Turkey after being nominated the US envoy to Afghanistan.
“We do not see him as the representative of the US in Turkey,” he said at a news conference with President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade.
It is traditional for outgoing envoys in Turkey to make valedictory visits to bid farewell to top officials before leaving their posts.
Although Bass is expected to leave Turkey in the coming days, it is unprecedented in the history of Turkish-US relations for Ankara to say it no longer recognizes Washington’s ambassador.
The dispute erupted last week when Turkey arrested a Turkish employee of the American consulate on suspicion of links to the group blamed for last year’s failed coup. In response, the US stopped issuing non-immigrant visas from its missions in Turkey, prompting Turkish missions in the US to hit back with a tit-for-tat step of their own.
Erdogan said the arrest, based on evidence found by the police, shows “something is going on at the Istanbul consulate.”
“The US should evaluate one thing: How did those agents leak into the consulate?” Erdogan asked.
“If they did not (put them there), then who put them there? No state would allow such agents to pose such a threat.”
The US Embassy has dismissed the allegations against the consulate staffer as “baseless.”
Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called on the US to move quickly to end the dispute.
The US decision to suspend visa services in Turkey has punished citizens of both countries, he said, accusing Washington of taking an emotional and inappropriate step against an ally.
In a blunt speech to ruling AK Party parliamentarians, Yildirim also defended Turkey’s arrest of the US consulate employee. “Turkey is not a tribal state, we will retaliate against what has been done in kind,” he said.
“Who are you punishing?” Yildirim said. “You are making your citizens and ours pay the price.”
“... We call on the United States to be more reasonable. The issue must, of course, be resolved as soon as possible,” he said, describing US behavior as “unbecoming” of an ally.
Relations between the countries have been plagued by disputes over US support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and Turkey’s calls for US-based Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen’s extradition. Ankara accuses Gulen of orchestrating a failed military coup against Erdogan in which more than 240 people were killed.
US courts have also indicted a Turkish banker and a former minister for conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran, as well as 15 of Erdogan’s security guards for attacking peaceful protesters during his visit to Washington in May.
“Did you ask permission from us when you dragged a general manager from our national bank into jail?” Yildirim said. “Why are you harboring Gulen? Does this fit our alliance or friendship?”
Yildirim said if the US wanted to continue its alliance with Turkey it should stop support for YPG fighters battling Daesh in Syria. Turkey says the YPG is an extension of the outlawed PKK which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey.
“Siding with our enemies is not fitting our alliances,” he said.
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Turkish officials to boycott US envoy: Erdogan
Turkish officials to boycott US envoy: Erdogan
UN says 3.3 million war-displaced Sudanese return home
- International Organization for Migration reports that three-quarters of those returning came from internal displacement sites
- At its peak, the war has displaced around 14 million people both internally and across borders
KHARTOUM: More than three million Sudanese people displaced by nearly three years of war have returned home, the United Nations migration agency said on Monday, even as heavy fighting continues to tear through parts of the country.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a devastating war pitting the regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. At its peak, the war had displaced around 14 million people both internally and across borders.
In a report released on Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said an estimated 3.3 million displaced Sudanese had made their way back home by November of last year.
The rise in returns follows a sweeping offensive launched by the Sudanese army in late 2024 to retake central regions seized earlier in the conflict by the RSF.
The campaign culminated in the recapture of Khartoum in March 2025, prompting many displaced families to try to go back.
According to the IOM, more than three-quarters of those returning came from internal displacement sites, while 17 percent traveled back from abroad.
Khartoum saw the largest number of returns — around 1.4 million people — followed by the central state of Al-Jazira, where roughly 1.1 million have gone back.
Earlier this month, the army-backed government announced plans to return to the capital after nearly three years of operating from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan in the country’s east.
Reconstruction work in Khartoum has been underway since the army retook the city.
Although Khartoum and several army-held cities in central and eastern Sudan have seen a relative lull in fighting, the RSF has continued to launch occasional drone strikes, particularly targeting infrastructure.
Elsewhere, violence remains intense.
In the country’s south, RSF forces have pushed deeper into the Kordofan region after seizing the army’s final stronghold in Darfur last October.
Reports of mass killings, rape, abductions and looting emerged after El-Fasher’s paramilitary takeover, and the International Criminal Court launched a formal investigation into “war crimes” by both sides.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a devastating war pitting the regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. At its peak, the war had displaced around 14 million people both internally and across borders.
In a report released on Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said an estimated 3.3 million displaced Sudanese had made their way back home by November of last year.
The rise in returns follows a sweeping offensive launched by the Sudanese army in late 2024 to retake central regions seized earlier in the conflict by the RSF.
The campaign culminated in the recapture of Khartoum in March 2025, prompting many displaced families to try to go back.
According to the IOM, more than three-quarters of those returning came from internal displacement sites, while 17 percent traveled back from abroad.
Khartoum saw the largest number of returns — around 1.4 million people — followed by the central state of Al-Jazira, where roughly 1.1 million have gone back.
Earlier this month, the army-backed government announced plans to return to the capital after nearly three years of operating from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan in the country’s east.
Reconstruction work in Khartoum has been underway since the army retook the city.
Although Khartoum and several army-held cities in central and eastern Sudan have seen a relative lull in fighting, the RSF has continued to launch occasional drone strikes, particularly targeting infrastructure.
Elsewhere, violence remains intense.
In the country’s south, RSF forces have pushed deeper into the Kordofan region after seizing the army’s final stronghold in Darfur last October.
Reports of mass killings, rape, abductions and looting emerged after El-Fasher’s paramilitary takeover, and the International Criminal Court launched a formal investigation into “war crimes” by both sides.
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