The incident is the latest indication that Washington is underestimating the degree to which Turkey’s leadership genuinely believes that the United States is complicit in the coup attempt, not least because of its willingness to harbor an exiled cleric and former political leader accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of plotting the uprising.
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Speaking at Presidential Palace in Ankara, he denounced the west for standing behind those who tried to unseat him.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people excluding the coup plotters and over 2,000 people were wounded. “Maybe I am underestimating a bit”, he said, referring to the heavy destruction on the night of the coup.
Erdogan reviews an honor guard as he arrives at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara.
Regardless of the facts, however, the suspicion that Washington may have been sympathetic to the coup plotters – or even actively helping to plan the uprising – is rapidly becoming conventional wisdom, Armstrong noted.
“What kind of strategic partners are we, that you can still host someone whose extradition I have asked for?”
Already strained ties between North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies Turkey and the United States have been aggravated by the failed putsch, with some government ministers even alleging Washington could have had a hand in the plot, which U.S. officials firmly reject.
Erdogan also rounded on the European Union, saying it had “not yet lived up to its promises” in a deal on reducing the flow of migrants to Europe.
Cavusoglu said he expressed the hope in his discussions that schools linked to Fethullah Gulen and his religious movement, which he called a “terrorist group”, would be closed.
The coup attempt cost Turkey’s economy 300 billion liras ($100 billion), the Hurriyet newspaper cited Customs Minister Bulent Tufenkci as saying, and Erdogan’s rare meeting with foreign investors was expected to be an attempt at reassurance after the recent turbulence in financial markets.
Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.
But Tufenkci said despite all this Turkey had managed to control the situation.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag sent a second document to the United States Tuesday seeking Gulen’s arrest, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Erdogan told RAI television that the probe by prosecutors in the northern city of Bologna, where Bilal had been studying, might affect bilateral links. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.
It has become similar to how many within Turkey contextualize major domestic and worldwide events around the seemingly limitless capacity of U.S. power.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said his government had started “virus and traitor cleansing” to weed out Gulenists from state institutions.
The Hurriyet daily said the overhaul would also hit the powerful intelligence service which would be split into separate units for foreign and domestic intelligence, in line with Britain’s system where foreign intelligence is handled by MI6 and domestic intelligence by MI5.
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USA state department spokesman John Kirby said Erdogan “is certainly free to express his views and his frustrations as he sees fit”.
