Two top USA intelligence bodies are being accused in an indictment of providing training to followers of the alleged mastermind behind the failed coup in Turkey, state-run Anadolu Agency said Thursday.
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Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 generals were detained, and more than 100 of them have already been charged pending trial.
He says military operations out of the air base at Incirlik are back to normal. Those air operations were temporarily halted following the coup attempt.
“It’s having an effect because it has affected all segments of the national security apparatus in Turkey”, Clapper told the Aspen forum.
“Many of our interlocutors have been purged or arrested”, he added. “There’s no question this is going to set back and make more hard our cooperation with the Turks”. Some of the people close to the USA are now in jail, he said.
Votel added that he was more anxious about “longer-term” impacts of the Turkish coup attempt and purge on USA counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East.
“We will go to Mosul when it’s time to go to Mosul”, he said. “I am concerned that it will impact the level of cooperation and collaboration that we have with Turkey”.
Lingering “friction” in Turkey is impacting some of the coalition’s current operations, Votel said.
“We’ve got ways to mitigate that, to manage that right now”, he said.
Turkey hosts U.S. troops and planes at Incirlik, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation airbase.
There’s been a decrease in the amount of foreign fighters traveling to Iraq and Syria, Votel said.
Erdogan’s government accuses Sunni Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen – in self-imposed USA exile – and followers of his Hizmet movement of being behind the failed coup, a charge denied by Gulen.
Erdogan wants the armed forces and national intelligence agency brought under the control of the presidency, a parliamentary official said on Thursday.
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Turkey has suspended or removed at least 60,000 people from jobs in the military, security services, judiciary, Finance Ministry and academia since the failed July 15-16 coup left more than 250 dead. Of those, more than 8,000 were formally arrested pending trial, it said.
