ISTANBUL—U.S. President Donald Trump urged his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take action for the release of an American pastor who is on trial for terrorism and espionage in Turkey.
In a message posted late Wednesday on his Twitter account, Mr. Trump said Andrew Brunson, a Presbyterian minister, was innocent and should be released.
“A total disgrace that Turkey will not release a respected U.S. Pastor, Andrew Brunson, from prison. He has been held hostage far too long,” Mr. Trump said.
“@RT_Erdogan should do something to free this wonderful Christian husband & father. He has done nothing wrong, and his family needs him!” he added.
Hope of an imminent release had risen among members of Mr. Brunson’s defense team after Messrs. Trump and Erdogan had appeared on good terms at summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels last week.
After the meeting, U.S. television CBS had reported that the two leaders had “fist-bumped” while Mr. Trump praised Mr. Erdogan for doing things “the right way.”
But on Wednesday, a Turkish court ordered Mr. Brunson to remain behind bars and adjourned the case to Oct. 12.
Turkish prosecutors allege Mr. Brunson colluded with a group Turkey blames for the 2016 failed military coup against Mr. Erdogan, as well with Kurdish militants Turkey regards as terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 35 years in prison.
The evangelical pastor, who has lived in Turkey for more than two decades and ran a small Presbyterian church in the coastal city of Izmir when he was detained in October 2016, has told judges he was never involved in any illegal activity.
Members of the U.S. Congress, who describe Mr. Brunson’s detention by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally as a hostage-taking, have proposed to retaliate with sanctions.
The indictment “is an absurd collection of anonymous accusations, flights of fantasy and random character assassination,” a bipartisan group of 66 U.S. senators wrote in an open letter to Mr. Erdogan in April.
Mr. Brunson’s case is one of several flash points—from strategic divergence in Syria to Turkey’s planned purchase of a missile-defense system from Russia—that have driven relations between the two NATO members to an historical low.
The U.S. blames Mr. Erdogan, who was reelected to a new five-year term on June 24, for assuming an increasingly authoritarian stance. Mr. Erdogan is upset by the lack of U.S. action on his repeated demands to deport a Turkish cleric he accuses of fomenting the failed military coup. The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, denies the accusation.
Write to David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com
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