Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Turkey will boycott electronic products from the US, as he issued another defiant response to the US sanctions imposed in a dispute over the detention of an American evangelical pastor. The US measures have accelerated a currency crisis in Turkey, though the lira rallied slightly on Tuesday, from a low of 7 against the dollar on Monday night to about 6.5 at noon (1000 BST) in Istanbul.

“We will boycott US electronic products,” the Turkish president said. “If they have iPhone, the other side has Samsung. In our country there is Venus, Vestel [the Turkish smartphone brands].” Erdoğan also railed against what he called a larger and deeper operation against Turkey. “They do not refrain from using the economy as a weapon against us, as they tried in the areas of diplomacy, military, or efforts for social and political instability,” he said. Meanwhile, the American pastor Andrew Brunson, whose continued detention over espionage allegations provoked the latest crisis, said through his lawyer that he was appealing against his house arrest and travel ban.(theguardian)…[+]