A total of 65.4 percent of the Turkish public thinks that continuing detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson is right, according to a recent poll.
Only 22.8 percent disapproves of the detention of Brunson, pro-government columnist Abdülkadir Selvi wrote in his latest column for the Hürriyet daily.
The poll was conducted by the OPTİMAR company with 1,787 participants between Aug. 30 and Sep. 1 in 26 provinces, Selvi said.
Brunson was put under house arrest by an İzmir court after almost two years of pretrial detention on terrorism charges, a ruling that strained relations between NATO allies the US and Turkey.
In retaliation for Turkey’s failure to free the cleric, the US administration sanctioned two Turkish ministers and doubled tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey. US President Donald Trump had threatened Turkey with further “large sanctions” if the Turkish government failed to release Brunson and send him home.