United States has resumed visa processing at its missions in Turkey on “limited basis,’’ the embassy said in an email on Monday.
It said the resumed visa processing was what could signal tentative improvement in the ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Turkey and the U.S. mutually suspended all non-immigrant visa services on Oct. 8 after Turkey’s arrest of a U.S. consulate employee escalated tension between the two NATO allies.
In May, a translator at the U.S. consulate in the southern province of Adana was arrested and, more recently, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) worker was detained in Istanbul.
Both were accused of links to 2016’s failed coup but the U.S. Embassy said the accusations were baseless.
Turkish police wanted to question a third worker based in Istanbul.
The worker’s wife and daughter were detained over alleged links to network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the abortive putsch.
However, they were later released.
Turkey had been angered by what it saw as U.S. reluctance to hand over Gulen, who lived in Pennsylvania since 1999.
U.S. officials said its courts required sufficient evidence before they could order Gulen’s extradition. (Reuters/NAN)
AIJ/HA
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