US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has held meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Singapore to seek the release of detained American pastor.

Pompeo also said he would be demanding the release of several local employees of the US diplomatic missions in Turkey.

The Turkish foreign minister told his US counterpart that threats won’t work. “We have said from the start that the other side’s threatening language and sanctions will not get any result. We repeated this today,” Cavusoglu told reporters after the meeting.

The Evangelical Christian pastor, Andrew Craig Brunson, was held in detention in December 2016 following a failed coup on charges of “committing crimes on behalf of terror groups without being a member” and espionage.

Pompeo defended Wednesday’s sanctions by his country as a sign of how seriously the administration takes Brunson’s case.

“The Turks were on notice that the clock had run out and it was time for Pastor Brunson to be returned and I hope they’ll see this for what it is: a demonstration that we’re very serious,” he told reporters on board his plane as he flew to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We consider this one of the many issues that we have with the Turks,” Pompeo added.

“Brunson needs to come home as do all the Americans being held by the Turkish government,” he said.

Brunson and the US government have time and again vehemently denied the charges.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence put up a threat last week to impose sanctions on Turkey if their demand to release Brunson was not immediately met with.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has outrightly rejected all the demands put up by US by asserting that his government cannot take its step back and is willing to “go its own way” if the US acted upon its threats.

The Turks have also vowed to retaliate by taking measures for the sanctions “without delay.”

The Turkish foreign ministry termed the sanctions a “disrespectful intervention in our legal system” that would harm “the constructive efforts towards resolving problems between the two countries.”

Although he was released to home detention, he faces a jail sentence of up to 35 years if he is convicted on both counts at the end of his ongoing trial.

The pastor has lived in Turkey for almost 23 years and led the Izmir Resurrection Church.

Under the new sanctions to be imposed by the US Treasury Department, any property, or interest in property, belonging to Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul or Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu within US jurisdiction would be blocked. Americans would generally be prohibited from doing any kind of business with them.

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