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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said the United States should look at its own actions if it wants the return of an American Christian pastor who has been jailed in Turkey for suspected links to a 2016 failed coup.

Erdogan made the comment in a live interview with broadcaster NTV.

Andrew Brunson, who has lived in Turkey for more than two decades, was indicted on charges of helping the group that Ankara holds responsible for the failed coup against Erdogan. He faces up to 35 years in prison. Brunson denies the charges.

Erdogan has previously linked Brunsons fate to that of the cleric Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric Turkey blames for the coup attempt. Gulen has lived in the United States since 1999 and denies the charges. Turkey is seeking his extradition from the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump and dozens of U.S. senators have urged Erdogan to release Brunson.

Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Gareth Jones

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Turkey's Erdogan says U.S. should look at its own actions ...

The country also enjoyed over 7 percent growth in the last quarter of 2017. Yet there are signs that the economy is faltering. Inflation remains persistently high, which hurts many of Mr. Erdogans own supporters.

The snap election was also seen as a move to undercut political opponents.

Mr. Erdogans announcement came after discussions with Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkeys main nationalist party, the Nationalist Movement Party, which has entered a formal alliance with Mr. Erdogans Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., for the elections.

Mr. Bahceli said that he supported early elections for the stability of the country and the economy. But he also seems to be concerned with fending off a rival for the nationalist vote, Meral Aksener, who split from his party and formed her own party, the Good Party, last year, according to Turkish media reports.

The early timing of the election now could prevent Ms. Aksener from running, since her new party may not be considered to have passed the required six months from its first party congress.

Ms. Aksener, a former interior minister, has nevertheless declared her intention to challenge Mr. Erdogan for president and field candidates for Parliament.

Turkeys largest opposition party, the Republican Peoples Party, or C.H.P., was caught flat-footed by the announcement, and has not yet selected a candidate for president. Its leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, ruled out running for the presidency last year.

Engin Altay, the deputy head of C.H.P.s parliamentary group, told a Turkish television station that a candidate would be chosen within 15 days.

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Erdogan Calls Early Turkish Elections in Bid to Solidify ...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called elections a year earlier than scheduled, moving to consolidate his one-man rule of the regions largest economy.

The vote will complete the transformation of the political system, eliminating the prime ministers job and weakening the role of parliament. Turkish markets rallied after Erdogans announcement in Ankara that the country will go to the polls June 24 to pick a president, almost certainly ratifying his hold on power.

In calling an early election, Erdogan must feel confident he and his AK Party have the necessary numbers to achieve victory," said Paul Greer, a London-based portfolio manager at Fidelity International. "That itself should reduce market uncertainty."

Erdogans ruling party has never called early elections in the nearly 16 years its been in power, and repeatedly rejected speculation that itd call them this year. Many analysts had predicted an early vote nonetheless, saying a deteriorating economic outlook and fighting in neighboring Syria would prompt him to move up the date rather than risk re-election in a downturn.

Erdogan, who defeated an attempted coup in 2016, has stoked nationalist fervor since launching an incursion into Syria in January, playing the same card as other strongmen, such as Russias Vladimir Putin.

It has become a necessity for Turkey to overcome uncertainties as soon as possible amid developments of historical importance in our region as well as the cross-border operation were carrying out in Syria, Erdogan said in announcing the vote.

Turkish forces captured swaths of northwestern Syria from U.S.-backed Kurdish militants, including the Kurdish stronghold of Afrin. Turkey refused to return the territory it has captured to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad until after independent elections there to make sure that territorial integrity of Syria remains intact.

Devlet Bahceli, leader of the nationalist party allied with Erdogan, proposed on Tuesday that the vote be moved forward to Aug. 26 of this year from November 2019.

The lira extended gains after the announcement, appreciating 1.6 percent to 4.03 per dollar as of 6:30 p.m. in Istanbul; it has weakened this year against all 17 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The benchmark stock index added 3.1 percent, its biggest one-day gain in a year.

The market rally reflects investor hopes that once a vote has passed, policy makers will dial back efforts to promote growth at the expense of a possible credit bubble, widening budget deficit and accelerating inflation.

Such hopes of a normalization may be misplaced, said Jan Dehn, head of research in London at Ashmore Group Plc, which focuses on emerging markets. He compared the situation to optimistic forecasts for the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Argentinas Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

"Markets hope that if Erdogan wins he can do some adjustment and get a bit more normal," said Dehn. "A bit like how markets used to view Chavez and even Kirchner. In reality of course, they did not get more moderate. They got more radical instead."

Turkey has become the worlds leading jailer of journalists, and Erdogans government in March widened the powers of its radio and television censor to include the Internet.

Since the failed putsch in 2016, the government rounded up of opponents by the tens of thousands, including workers in every branch of government and leading members of the media, academia and the judiciary. Even Miss Turkey was dethroned and jailed for criticizing Erdogan on Instagram.

The Committee to Protect Journalists in December identified 73 jailed Turkish journalists, the most in the world for the second year running.

It has also banned or blocked access at times to Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, as well as the virtual private network services, or VPNs, that allow users to mask their locations and skirt the bans. Wikipedia -- in all languages -- has been blocked for almost a year.

With assistance by Selcan Hacaoglu, Ben Bartenstein, and Constantine Courcoulas

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets members of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, at the Grand National Assembly in Ankara earlier this year. Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets members of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, at the Grand National Assembly in Ankara earlier this year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called new presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, more than a year earlier than scheduled. The change announced Wednesday by Erdogan speeds the implementation of the constitutional changes approved last year, which will give the president broad new powers upon completion of the next national election.

Just hours after Erdogan's televised address Wednesday, Turkish lawmakers voted to extend the country's state of emergency through July the seventh such extension since Ankara first implemented it after an attempted coup in July 2016.

Speaking at the presidential palace in Ankara before the parliamentary vote, Erdogan told the country that, with political uncertainty rampant in the region, there was simply no time to lose in scheduling new elections.

"Even though the president and government are working in unison, the diseases of the old system confront us at every step we take," Erdogan said, as translated by The Guardian. "Developments in Syria and elsewhere have made it urgent to switch to the new executive system in order to take steps for our country's future in a stronger way."

Turkey launched a military operation in northwest Syria earlier this year, aimed at dislodging Kurdish fighters from the region just across the Turkish border. Ankara views the People's Protection Units, or YPG, a Kurdish militia operating in that area, as a terrorist group allied with Kurdish separatists inside its own borders and just last month, the Turkish military seized the Syrian city of Afrin from the Kurds.

As NPR's Peter Kenyon noted at the time, Erdogan has been riding a wave of domestic support for the operation, which "has analysts concluding that Erdogan's political support is on the rise."

At the same time, Erdogan said his decision to call the vote came not solely of his own accord, but partly at the suggestion of a political ally: Devlet Baheli, head of the nationalist MHP party, who proposed the idea Tuesday. Baheli said there's little reason to prolong the wait to implement those constitutional changes passed last year, which exchange the country's parliamentary form of government for one that concentrates most of the power with the president.

Erdogan added during his speech that his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has entered a political alliance with Baheli's party for the coming elections.

Other parties, however, have resisted the proposition at least as long as the nearly 2-year-old state of emergency remains in place.

"There cannot be an election under emergency rule," said Bulent Tezcan, spokesman for the main opposition party, according to Reuters. "The country needs to brought out of the emergency rule regime starting today."

Elections held under the state of emergency are likely to hasten Erdogan's consolidation of power and are unlikely to come as welcome news to the European Union, which Turkey has been seeking to join. Just one day earlier, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, expressed dismay at the recent political developments in Turkey.

"Most worryingly, in the crucial area of fundamental rights, Turkey has taken significant steps backwards," Johannes Hahn, the commissioner considering potential new members, said while introducing a new report on Turkey's EU bid Tuesday.

Conceding that the 2016 coup attempt "fundamentally changed the security situation" in Turkey, Hahn said Ankara's response has been disproportionate.

"Journalists, human rights activists, members of civil society are still being imprisoned," he added. "Since the introduction of the state of emergency, more than 150,000 people have been taken into custody, and many are still detained."

The lengthy report itself made the matter even more plain: "Turkey should lift the state of emergency without delay."

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, rejected the report's conclusions in a lengthy rebuttal, citing its continuing fight against multiple terrorist organizations.

"Unfortunately, the European Commission showed that it was once again unwilling to understand the difficulties of the period we are passing through," the ministry said in its statement. "Although we have explained these issues repeatedly supported by documentation, the Commission was unable to be objective and balanced."

Regardless of the EU's concerns about the state of emergency, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced Wednesday that they are proceeding without delay, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

"The process has officially started," he said.

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Erdogan Calls Snap Elections In Turkey, And State Of ...

The last time Erdogan was tested at the ballot box, he secured sweeping new powers in a constitutional referendum last year with just a 51 percent yes vote. That means the country will switch from a parliamentary system to a presidential system that abolishes the office of the prime minister and decreases the powers of the parliament.

Erdogan announced Wednesday that snap elections would be held June 24 more than a year before they were due to occur. The vote hadn't been expected until November 2019.

"The diseases of the old system confront us at every step we take," he said in a speech broadcast live on television.

Some analysts believe the close referendum result suggests even a relative small number of votes could decide Erdogans future as an ailing economy and increasing divisions within the country's nationalist movement potentially threaten his grip on power.

In 2015, there were about 90,000 eligible Turkish voters in the U.S., Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News reported, and about 1.4 million in Germany.

Harun Armagan, the deputy chairman of AKPs human rights committee, told NBC News that the overseas outreach was aimed at spelling out "what weve done and what we will be doing."

However, party officials were tight-lipped about which cities the offices would be located in and when they would open.

Previous attempts to influence Turkish citizens now living abroad led to controversy in other Western countries.

In the lead up to last year's referendum vote, Germany and the Netherlands banned some rallies and visits from Turkish officials, citing security concerns. Erdogan called the moves Nazi-like.

Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former lawmaker with Turkeys CHP opposition party, said the new offices would provide Erdogan with "an opportunity to reach out directly" to Turkish citizens living abroad.

"Every vote counts, it might be a close second round in the presidential election," he added.

Erdemir said that simmering tensions between Washington and Ankara likely also played a role in the decision to set up an office in the U.S.

"The AKP has been suffering from an image problem in the U.S, he said. Probably the primary aim is to reach the U.S. government and U.S. policymakers."

Turkeys reputation suffered a major blow on U.S. soil when security officials fought protesters in Washington during Erdogan's visit to see President Donald Trump last May. A dozen members of Erdogan's security detail nine security officers and three police officers were charged with taking part in the melee while the Turkish leader looked on.

U.S. prosecutors recently dismissed criminal charges against 11 of Erdogan's bodyguards stemming from the Washington brawl.

In September, a protester was punched by Turkish security while being physically forced from the room during a speech by Erdogan at a New York hotel.

Tensions between the two NATO allies have increased further because of differences over military operations in Syria, where Turkish troops recently launched a military offensive against the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia, the YPG.

Ankara says the YPG is linked to the Kurdish Workers Party, a militant group in Turkey that both Ankara and Washington recognize as a terrorist organization.

U.S. support for Kurdish fighters, which Turkey views as a threat to its national security, had already helped sour relations between the two countries.

Erdogan's international standing has also been weakened by a purge of opponents that followed a failed 2016 coup.

The Turkish leader blames cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylania, for masterminding the bid to topple him. Gulen denies that allegation.

Erdogan demanded the extradition of Gulen but Washington said it did not receive evidence of his involvement in the putsch.

NBC News reported last November that investigators with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe were looking into whether former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn met with senior Turkish officials just weeks before Trump's inauguration about a potential quid pro quo in which Flynn would help orchestrate Gulen's return to Turkey. Flynn is now cooperating with the inquiry.

AKP already has offices in Brussels, Belgium, and in the Turkish-Cypriot state in northern Cyprus that is only recognized by Turkey.

In addition to the U.S., new offices are planned for Germany, the U.K., France, Russia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Armagan, the AKP official, added that Erdogan's party would also seek permission to hold rallies in Europe and the U.S. He said the party was eager to counter what it perceives as unfair media coverage and the influence of Gulen.

Previous attempts by the Turkish government to influence overseas citizens have ended in serious discord.

In the Netherlands, violent clashes broke out when Turkish ministers tried to attend pro-Erdogan rallies during last year's constitutional referendum. When Dutch authorities outlawed the visits, Erdogan called them Nazi remnants and fascists."

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