US response muted as Turkey gives consulate employee harsh prison sentence

A Turkish court has sentenced an employee of the US Consulate in Istanbul to nearly nine years in prison only days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed what he called a new era in US-Turkish relations.

Metin Topuz, a Turkish citizen who served as a liaison between the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the Turkish police for three decades, was convicted of “aiding an armed terrorist organization.” An appeals court is due to decide whether to uphold the sentence.

Topuz, who has remained in jail since his arrest in October 2017, is one of three US consulate employees targeted by the Turkish government since the failed July 2016 coup to overthrow Erdogan. The US government has called them political “hostages” and demanded their immediate release.

Hamza Ulucay, a Kurdish translator at the US consular mission in Adana, was arrested in February 2017 on charges of membership of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. Mete Canturk, another Istanbul consulate staffer who worked with the Turkish police, was placed under house arrest in January 2018. Both Canturk and Topuz are accused of links to the US-based Sunni cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey says engineered the abortive coup. All three have protested their innocence.