Erdogan was also critical of Germany, France and Belgium for not visiting Turkey following the failed coup, saying that foreign diplomats have visited the other countries to offer condolences after recent terror attacks.
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“All viruses inside the Turkish Armed Forces, police and judiciary and all state establishments should be removed”, Erdogan said as he slammed the attitude of western governments toward Turkey following the overthrow attempt.
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.
“If my son came back to Italy at this moment, he could be arrested”, Erdogan said in an interview with the state broadcaster.
Erdogan insisted that the coup attempt may have been carried out inside Turkey, but the script was “written overseas”, adding that the Gulen Movement, which he has blamed for the coup, receives most of its funding through charter schools inside the United States.
He repeated a complaint that no foreign leader had visited Turkey since the failed coup on 15 July, which left more than 270 people dead.
The government says the coup was instigated by a USA -based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania and whose extradition Turkey is seeking from the United States. He denies any involvement.
The coup “was outrageous. F-16 aircrafts bombed Parliament”, Jagland said. “This should be clearly recognized”.
The Turkish government launched a sweeping crackdown on Gulen’s movement, which it characterizes as a terrorist organization and which runs schools, charities and businesses internationally. More than 18,000 people have been detained and tens of thousands fired by the government in what it dubs “cleansing the system from viruses and traitors”. “It doesn’t mean that these people knew what this network was doing”.
Following the attempted coup in Turkey, Mogherini called on Turkey to respect the rule of law. He insisted that Turkey had zero tolerance for torture and said that Amnesty International is not aware of the violence done by coup plotters.
The money-laundering investigation followed accusations by Murat Hakan Uzan, an exiled member of one of Turkey’s richest families and an opponent of the president, a legal source said.
Turkish authorities stepped up pressure on the United States to extradite Gulen, sending a new package of documents to the American authorities, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said.
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Relations between the two countries suffered an additional blow after Turkish pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Safak reported immediately after the coup attempt that the operation was helped by a retired U.S. general, John Campbell, who previously commanded American troops in Afghanistan.
