Erdoğan says Turkey won't talk to America's ambassador anymore

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his government no longer accepts the legitimacy of the current U.S. ambassador to his country, marking the latest twist in a spiraling diplomatic spat between Washington and Ankara.

The two countries suspended non-immigrant visa services to each others’ citizens over the weekend after Turkey arrested a Turkish citizen working at the U.S. embassy and accused him of taking part in the unsuccessful 2016 coup against Erdoğan. The move sent Turkey’s stock market into a nosedive.

Read more: New travel restrictions between U.S. and Turkey send lira tumbling

Now, Erdoğan says that he personally, and his top government ministers, are refusing to speak with the current U.S ambassador, John Bass, who was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a new post to Afghanistan.

“In fact, this ambassador is doing his farewell visits,” Erdoğan said during a public appearance Tuesday in Belgrade. “And right now, be it our cabinet ministers, parliament head — and I personally am not accepting his farewell visit, and will not do so, because we do not see him as a representative of the United States in Turkey — let me say that clearly.”

The backlash against that 2016 coup has unleashed a crippling purge of massive proportions that has seen tens of thousands arrested in Turkey, including the local head of Amnesty International. Erdoğan’s critics charge he is marching the country towards total dictatorship.

“It’s a crisis,” former U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2008 to 2010, James Jeffrey, told VICE News.

Jeffrey pointed to the arrest of the U.S. embassy employee, which he said appears to be part of an effort to force the United States to hand over Fethullah Gülen, a renegade Turkish preacher who lives in the United States and has been consistently blamed by Erdogan for the coup. The U.S. has refused to extradite Gülen, citing lack of evidence against him.

“This is seen as a crude attempt to put pressure on the U.S.,” Ambassador Jeffrey said.

On Tuesday, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal named Ayla Albayrak was sentenced in absentia to two years and one month in prison for allegedly spreading propaganda in support of a Kurdish terrorist group. “This was an unfounded criminal charge and wildly inappropriate conviction that wrongly singled out a balanced Wall Street Journal report,” said the Journal’s Editor in Chief Gerard Baker.”

Erdoğan speculated, without evidence, that Ambassador Bass took the decision to stop processing visas for Turkish citizens without guidance from his superiors in Washington.

“If he made this decision in his head himself, then higher U.S. authorities should not keep him in his position one minute longer,” Erdoğan said.

Bass had previously posted a four-and-a-half minute video to the web site of the U.S. embassy in Turkey explaining that the outpost was suspending visa services “while we assess the commitment of the government of Turkey to the security of our government facilities and personnel.”

A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said Bass has the U.S. government’s full support.