Amazon has postponed its entry to the Turkish market due to anti-American sentiment among the public, manifested most recently when Turks smashed iPhones due to a row between the US and Turkey, a Hürriyet daily columnist wrote on Monday.
According to Jale Özgentürk, Amazon opened an office in İstanbul and was planning to expand its European operations to Turkey by the end of August.
Amazon will eventually launch its Turkey venture, says Özgentürk; however, the company hesitated after seeing video footage of Turks smashing their iPhones in response to US President Donald Trump’s threats against Turkey.
Turkish-US relations became strained after a court decision to put American pastor Andrew Brunson under house arrest after almost two years in pretrial detention on terrorism-related charges.
Following the court ruling, the US sanctioned two Turkish ministers and doubled tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it was an “economic attack” by the US targeting the country and called on the public to boycott iPhones.
Following his call, video footage in which ordinary citizens were seen destroying their smart phones with hammers went viral on the Internet.