USA officials openly supported President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of failed coup, but then joined the rest of the West in criticising the Turkish government for the massive crackdown which started immediately afterwards, allegedly aimed at the coup’s instigators but also suspected to be targeting the opposition.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday said the West supports terrorism and backs coups.
During a speech delivered before several global investors, Erdogan said, “Now I ask: Does the West give support to terror or not? Is the West taking side with democracy or coups and terrorism?” the president asked. “Is the West on the side of democracy or on the side of terror?”
The European Union (EU) should welcome the fact that the military coup attempt in Turkey was prevented, TRT Haber news channel quoted Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs Omer Celik as saying August 3.
Erdogan also regretted that no Western leader had come to Turkey to express condolences with the Turkish people and said, “It’s sufficient to look at the statements issued during and after the coup to see this”.
Ankara, which claimed that USA-based Fethullah Gulen was the mastermind of the coup, has been urging the US, Turkey’s strategic partner, to extradite him from his home in Pennsylvania.
When it was allied with Erdogan’s government in the past, the Gulen movement was believed to have been behind a series of crackdowns on pro-secular figures as well as military officers accused at the time of plotting a coup.
Turkish officials, meanwhile, say they have sent a second set of documents to the USA government detailing why it is urgent to arrest Gulen, whom Ankara regards as leading a terrorist organization.
Mr Tufenkci pointed out Turkey had managed to regain control quickly after the coup on 15 July, with markets opening as normal the following Monday.
While governments have denounced the coup attempt, they have also expressed concerns about the crackdown on opposition supporters in Turkey since then.
Erdogan also said Turkey’s presidency of telecommunication and communication would be shut down as part of a nation-wide probe against the coup plotters linked to the FETO terror organization. Clearly disturbed by USA procedure such as requests for documentation, he told Mexican television interviewers that, “You have to be blind and deaf not to understand that he is behind all of this…”
The minister said that if Gulen leaves the USA for another country, it would be with the full knowledge of US authorities.
Gulen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, has condemned the coup attempt and denied involvement in it.
The Turkish government, and Erdogan in particular, has been angered by what they say is a delay in the extradition of Gulen from the USA, and the issue has strained relations between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. About 18,000 people have been detained or arrested, a lot of them from the military, and authorities have said the purge of those suspected of links to Gulen in the military will continue.
Turkey’s allies, including the US and European Union nations, condemned the military uprising but have also warned that reprisals by the government should be measured.
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In a sign of efforts to shore up relations, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, visited Turkey and met with his Turkish counterpart Gen. Hulusi Akar, who was briefly held captive by the rebels during the coup, as well as with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
