Dozens of Turkish journalists have been jailed, and several foreign journalists have been harassed, detained, denied entry or expelled from Turkey in recent months, particularly since an unsuccessful coup attempt in July. A Wall Street Journal correspondent, Dion Nissenbaum, was held incommunicado for three days in December without explanation before leaving the country along with his wife and infant daughter.

After having arrived at the Istanbul airport from London, Mr. Nordland said in an email that he had been stopped by the border police. They told him that his name was on an Interior Ministry order denying him entry and that they were placing him on the next flight back, “no reason given,” he wrote. A Turkish lawyer for The Times, Orcun Cetinkaya, said the airport police had told a colleague that the reason was “national security,” with no further details.

A spokesman for the Turkish presidency, who spoke on condition of anonymity under government protocol, and Huseyin Muftuoglu, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said they would investigate the circumstances and had no further immediate comment. Telephone attempts to reach Ali Ozturk, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, were met with a busy signal.

Turkish officials had earlier expressed unhappiness over some articles by Mr. Nordland from November and December, particularly one from the southeast city of Diyarbakir, the former stronghold of an outlawed Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. The article described the aftermath of months of fighting there between P.K.K. guerrillas and government forces.

In a statement, Mr. Baquet said: “The Turkish government’s action is an affront to freedom of the press and an effort to keep the world from having access to independent reporting from Turkey. Rod is a veteran correspondent who has done groundbreaking journalism from around the world. There was no justification for today’s action. The Times remains committed to covering Turkey fairly, accurately and fully.”