A recent U.S. court case against a Turkish banker has driven yet another wedge between the United States and Turkey during what has become an exceptionally rocky period in the two countries' relationship. On Jan. 3, a federal jury in New York found Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the former deputy general manager of Turkish state-backed bank Halkbank, guilty of conspiring to defraud the United States, of violating U.S. sanctions law and of committing bank fraud. Atilla, along with eight co-defendants, was accused of helping to circumvent 2012 U.S. sanctions against Iran in a multibillion dollar scheme involving two Turkish banks. In October 2017, co-defendant Reza Zarrab signed a guilty plea deal. In response to the conviction, Turkey's foreign ministry called the trial unfair and said that the verdict was "unjust and unfortunate."...
