Mubasher: The Turkish lira (TRY) on Friday weakened over 6% against the US dollar, after Washington threatened Ankara with further economic sanctions, should not the Turkish authorities hand over the detained US pastor Andrew Brunson.

Earlier in the day, the embattled currency dived about 7% at TRY 6.2499 against the greenback.

By 11:28 am GMT, the USD/TRY pair went up 5.34% to TRY 6.1455.

In response to the weak performance of the lira, the Turkish banking watchdog moved to retain the value of the currency through curbing future transactions for offshore investors and reducing controls on swap transactions.

The Turkish currency gained some support in the previous session, rising by 5% to TRY 5.8241 against the US dollar. This came following Qatar’s pledge to invest $15 billion in Turkey.

The US was poised to place further sanctions against Turkey, unless Ankara releases the US evangelical pastor who is tried on terrorism charges over backing an attempted coup in 2016, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told President Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

This was followed by President Trump’s tweet where he said that the US “will pay nothing” for releasing Brunson, “a great patriot hostage,” but Washington is “cutting back on Turkey.”