page_title: Andrew Brunson
section_title: International relations
hierarchical_section_title: Andrew Brunson / Reactions / International relations
caption_attribution_description: English: President Trump and President Erdoğan give a joint statement in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 in Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: Andrew Craig Brunson is an American-Hungarian pastor and a teaching elder of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Brunson was arrested in Turkey, where he had lived since the mid-1990s, and in October 2016 during the purges occurring after the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In 2019, Brunson published a memoir about his ordeal. Brunson is an evangelical pastor of the Izmir Resurrection Church, a small Protestant church with about 25 congregants. T-Online describes the church as having been held in a room in a tenement.
  On September 28, 2017, Erdoğan unsuccessfully proposed exchanging Brunson for Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic preacher accused of supporting the coup attempt from his exile in the United States. On July 26, 2018, US Vice President Pence called on Erdoğan to release Brunson or face significant sanctions. On August 1, 2018, the U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on two top Turkish government officials who were involved in the detention of Brunson, Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. On August 9, US President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Turkish products.
context_section_description: Trump brought this issue up with Erdogan at a meeting on May 13, 2017.
  On September 28, 2017, Erdoğan said the United States should exchange Pennsylvania-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen with Pastor Andrew Brunson, saying "You have a pastor too. Give him to us.... Then we will try [Brunson] and give him to you." The Federal judiciary alone determines extradition cases in the U.S. An August 2017 decree gave Erdogan authority to approve the exchange of detained or convicted foreigners with people held in other countries. Asked about the suggested swap on September 28, 2017, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: "I can't imagine that we would go down that road.... We have received extradition requests for [Gülen]." Anonymous US officials have said to reporters that the Turkish government has not yet provided sufficient evidence for the U.S. Justice Department to charge Gülen.
  On October 11, 2017, departing U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John R. Bass said Brunson "appears to be being held simply because he's an American citizen who as a man of faith was in contact with a range of people in this country who he was trying to help, in keeping with his faith.  And at a time when there were lots of interactions between many different people in society, and for some reason, some specific set of his interactions suddenly are being classified as support for terrorism, for membership in a terrorist organization.  I have yet to see a consistent description of which specific terrorist organization he is supposed to be a member of.  People don't seem to have had a straight answer on that within the Turkish government. So for all those reasons, we believe he should be released.  And U.S. government officials have continued to encourage the Turkish government to release him."
  In June 2018, a bipartisan bill changing the NDAA to block the transfer of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey was authored by senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and was passed through Congress. Alongside a third senator, Senator James Lankford (R-OK), special legislation was created with the intent of preventing Turkey from "working to degrade NATO interoperability, exposing NATO assets to hostile actors, degrading the security of NATO member countries, seeking to import weapons from a foreign country under sanction by the U.S., and wrongfully or unlawfully detaining any American citizens."
  The senators expressed concerns about Turkey's growing ties to Russia and their concerns about the Brunson case.
  On July 5, 2018, in anticipation of Pastor Brunson's third day of trial, 98 Members of the European Parliament, from all political groups and 21 countries, sent an open letter to remind President Erdoğan of "the European and International commitments of the Republic of Turkey in regard to freedom of religion, to the prohibition of arbitrary detention, and to the right to a fair trial." They especially protest "against the fact that Pastor Brunson had to wait almost a year and half before being indicted" and against "the fact that the indictment associates 'Christianization' with terrorism, considering the Christian faith as endangering Turkey's unity, while Christianity has been peacefully present in this land long before the current Republic of Turkey."
  On July 18, 2018, President Trump tweeted President Erdogan calling for Brunson's release. Trump called the Turkish government's refusal to release Brunson a "total disgrace," described him as being "held hostage" and defended Brunson against the government's accusations.
  On July 26, 2018, US Vice President Pence called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to release Brunson or face significant sanctions. On the same day, President Trump released a tweet, stating that the United States would impose sanctions on Turkey due to Brunson's detention.
  According to the Independent, Turkey moving Brunson to house arrest on July 25 was seen as “too little, too late” by American authorities and a phone call between the two countries on the 26th was described as “not going well”. It associates th
caption: President Trump and Turkish President Erdoğan give a joint statement at the White House in May 2017
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