President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the United States of seeking to stab Turkey "in the back" over a diplomatic row sparked by the detention of an American pastor that has sent the lira into a tailspin. "You act on one side as a strategic partner but on the other you fire bullets into the foot of your strategic partner," Erdogan told a conference in the capital Ankara.

"We are together in NATO and then you seek to stab your strategic partner in the back. Can such a thing be accepted?" Erdogan asked. Turkey and the United States, two NATO allies, have been locked in bitter disputes over a string of issues from a pastor's detention on terror charges to the war in Syria. The dispute has severely hit the Turkish currency which has been in the free fall since Friday.