The occurrence of the Askey–Wilson (AW) algebra in the SU(2) Chern–Simons (CS) theory and in the Reshetikhin–Turaev (RT) link invariant construction with quantum algebra Uq(su2) is explored. Tangle diagrams with three strands with some of them enclosed in a spin-1/2 closed loop are associated to the generators of the AW algebra. It is shown in both the CS theory and RT construction that the link invariant of these tangles obey the relations of the AW generators. It follows that the expectation values of certain Wilson loops in the CS theory satisfy relations dictated by the AW algebra and that the link invariants do not distinguish the corresponding linear combinations of links.