Despite suggestions that the US and Turkey are both softening their tones in an attempt to get back on the same page, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a harsh speech today, accusing the West in general and the US in particular of “supporting terrorism” and siding with coup-plotters against his country.
Erdogan insisted that the coup attempt may have been carried out inside Turkey, but the script was “written abroad,” adding that the Gulen Movement, which he has blamed for the coup, receives most of its funding through charter schools inside the United States.
Gulen organizations getting bankrolled by US taxpayer funding is a long-standing matter of investigation within the US, and Erdogan seems keen to position this as part of his narrative that the US was secretly behind the coup movement. That Gulen lives in exile in the US has added to that.
“What kind of strategic partners are we,” Erdogan asked, “that you can still host someone whose extradition I have asked for?” Turkey requested Gulen’s extradition almost immediately after the coup attempt, and officials have presented US requests for evidence as a national insult, insisting if the US was a good ally they wouldn’t ask so many questions and would just hand him over.
Turkish officials have added the extradition request is “urgent,” because they fear Gulen might flee to a third country that would be even less willing to hand him over unconditionally.
This guy’s going off the deep end.
Let me see if I am getting this correctly, Rick… You think that RTE protests too much when he complains about the “O” admministation’s response to the coup against the democratilly electedhim and his democratically elected gov.
Let’s see him produce some evidence that US and NATO (NATO??) was behind the coup. Personally I doubt it. Whenever there’s a failed coup against one of these punk dictators (Chavez, Correa, Erdogan et al.) someone always screams the US was responsible. The way I see it, if the US had been behind these coups, they wouldn’t have failed, not because the US is successful at everything but because the US is somewhat good at regime change. Of course I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t become a fan of Erdogan anyway.
The fact that I disagree with the establishment’s foreign and domestic policies doesn’t make all these foreign opportunistic critics of the US my friends. And I recommend critical and bright guys and gals here such as yourself be a bit more skeptical and cautious about supporting the Erdogans of the world.
Maybe Erdogan told Obama “We want Gulen as much as you wanted Snowden”…
Erdogan was also peeved, if you can believe it because the German gov wouldn’t let him address a rally in Germany.
Turkey is indeed pivoting toward Russia and China.
https://therulingclassobserver.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/the-glass-ceiling-obscuring-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-or-the-prison-ceiling-above/
Erdogan staged and stopped his own coup . So now he wants to torture more of his enemies