Mayor of the Turkish capital of Ankara İbrahim Melih Gokcek on Friday called for US Ambassador to Turkey John Bass to leave the country, because of his position on recent detentions in the country.

ANKARA (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, Bass voiced concerns about the detention of 14 Turkish scholars for a public denunciation of Turkish military actions against Kurdish militants. The scholars signed a petition last week calling for an end to Ankara’s violent attacks against Kurds.

“You are the wrong choice for the United States, come back to your country. It will be better if a new ambassador, knowing us, comes. When we are trying to bring the level of US-Turkish relations to the highest level, you are trying to make the Turkish nation an enemy of the United States,” Gokcek said on his Twitter account.

He added that it was not very wise advice to tolerate “terrorist attacks on Turkish police officers and soldiers.”

Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast region has recently seen renewed violence between the Turkish government forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party since mid-summer breakdown of a two-year peace process.