At an event for foreign investors in Ankara, the Turkish President stressed that the “west is supporting terrorism and taking sides with coups”.
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“If my son came back to Italy at this moment, he could be arrested”, Erdogan said in an interview with the state broadcaster. “Nobody had any imagination that they could start a military coup, killing people and shelling parliament”.
Erdogan also repeated a complaint that no foreign leader had visited Turkey after the failed coup, while France and Belgium received visits in solidarity after terror attacks there. However, he and his supporters still maintain that they are pro-democracy and that Germany stifled the free speech rights of the protesters. “If we show pity to these murderers, to these coup plotters, we will end up in a pitiful state”, he said. “Is the West on the side of democracy or on the side of terror?”
Turkey is in the grips of an unprecedented purge of its government and society, which has seen tens of thousands of soldiers, lawyers, journalists, academics and others with alleged links to Gulen’s organization arrested, detained or suspended from their jobs.
Germany is clashing with Turkey over its lack of support for the Turkish government’s violent quashing of an attempted coup in July. He added that this was not plotted inside of Turkey, the plotters acted inside Turkey according to “a scenario prepared outside”.
Fethullah Gulen who has been residing in the U.S. since 1999 has denied the allegations leveled against him regarding his involvement in coup bid.
Additionally, while US courts won’t assess concerns about the fair treatment of suspects in a country requesting extradition, the issue could still arise because extradition is “ultimately a political decision” by the United States, he said. As such, the Telecommunication Directorate (TİB), an institution which had allegedly been taken over by Gülenists, will be closed, he said.
During his Monday visit to Ankara, Dunford met with his Turkish counterpart in the military, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, as well as parliamentarians.
Kilicdaroglu declared he will drop all the charges he had filed against the Turkish President as soon as possible.
“Many of them may have been dragged into something which they did not know about”, Jagland said. Hopefully, the implementation of the state of emergency will continue successfully.
Turkey’s football authorities meanwhile fired 94 officials – including referees and assistant referees – in the wake of the coup, the football federation said.
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A group of Turkish lawmakers is visiting Washington and New York City this week to press for Gulen’s extradition.
