What will it take to defuse US-Turkey crisis?

The US Treasury’s Aug. 1 bombshell about sanctioning two key ministers in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet over the continued detention of North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson has spurred frenzied speculation about an imminent and irremediable rupture between the two NATO allies. How much worse can things get, and with neither side inclined to back down, what will it take to defuse the crisis?

The immediate effects of Treasury moves to freeze any US-based assets belonging to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and “generally prohibiting US persons from engaging in transactions with them” was to push the ailing Turkish lira to record lows against the dollar. Experts maintain the pair are the most senior officials sanctioned so far under the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 punishing human rights abuse and corruption.

While some Turkish analysts played down the move as “symbolic” and “Trumpian” — in other words, particular to the erratic foreign policy coming out of the White House — it's unprecedented between NATO allies.

“Given the fragile state of both the US-Turkish relationship and the Turkish economy, the consequences of this crisis could be dramatic,” observed Nicholas Danforth, a senior analyst for the Bipartisan Policy Center who specializes in Turkish affairs. Danforth told Al-Monitor, "Both Washington and Ankara appear to have elevated Brunson’s case to a matter of national prestige, making it hard for either side to back down. The United States has the power to do considerable damage to Turkey’s economy if it wants, and Erdogan, for his part, has the power to resist, whether all of his citizens want to endure the consequences or not.”