ANKARA: A Turkish court on Tuesday rejected an appeal to release from house arrest a US pastor whose detention on terror-related charges has strained relations between NATO allies Ankara and Washington. The court in the Aegean region of Izmir rejected an appeal by the lawyer for Andrew Brunson, who ran a Protestant church, to have him released from house arrest and have his travel ban removed, state-run Anadolu news agency said. The court had last week ordered that Brunson, who had spent almost two years in jail after his initial detention in October 2016, be moved from jail to house arrest at his home in Izmir. But the move stoked tensions rather than defusing the crisis, with US media reports accusing Turkey of reneging on a deal to free him, which Ankara has denied. Last week US President Donald Trump threatened to impose "large sanctions" on Turkey if the pastor was not freed, following similar warnings from his Vice President Mike Pence. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that sanction threats would not force Ankara to take a "step back", in comments reported on Sunday. Erdogan"s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin later said Turkey would not give into threats. "It is not possible to accept in any way threatening language against Turkey," Kalim told reporters in Ankara after a cabinet meeting.