This is what I've heard on the US side: The reason Trump is on the warpath w/ Turkey was cuz Trump & Erdogan made a deal where Trump helps Turkey get back one of their citizens being held in Israel, and in return Turkey releases Brunson. Trump makes the call to Israel, Israel releases the Turkish citizen, Erdogan reneges and denies there ever was a deal. Trump feels betrayed, takes it personally, so the present situation.
What's the Turkish take on all this, from the public's POV? Because Trump doesn't really strike me as the type to do something for nothing
Brunson is a long term CIA agent and Ozkan is some relatively irrelevant muslim woman who supports Palestinians. The US couldnt persuade Turkey to let Brunson go before so I doubt such a trade of would of worked.
I think Erdogan has been set up here and I'm not a fan of him at all. The Turkish woman was arrested on trumped up charges. One charge for "smuggling" 3 bottles of perfume, yes perfume, to give to hamas so they can sell it for funding. The other charge was for a phone charger, and a third charge was of giving them $500. They even claim she was given $1000 to cover her expenses for giving them $500. Hamas pays a woman a grand to give Hamas 500 dollars. Come on!!
I doubt these charges would of held up in a court. So she was always set to be released. Trump says some nice things about Erdogan at the Nato summit making it appear like they agreed to something being cut from the same cloth and all, then boom. The woman is released and a narrative is set for the public.
"The good honest pastor being held hostage, christian defender trump made a deal to secure the good mans release by trading him for an evil hamas supporter, untrustworthy erdo reneged on his deal so trump had no choice but to sanction."
I'm not sticking up for Erdogan here, he can be very naive when you consider Gulen, the PKK peace deal etc. Personally, this is just the US deep state trying to get their man back. Turkey isn't going to release him without getting Gulen, Turkey made it clear they are willing to "trade" so the US came up with a trade story to use without giving away any of their men, Brunson or Gulen.
But it's important to note that Trump can only get away with it because Turkey allows it. The economy was always vulnerable and there to be exploited, lack of any vision or strategy in foreign policy and awful sycophantic advisors.