Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lamented at a Tuesday conference that no foreign leader visited Turkey to show solidarity with him after an attempted July 15 coup, as leaders did after terror attacks in Europe.
Erdogan went even further saying “those we considered friends are siding with coup-plotters and terrorists.” The remarks show further deterioration of relations between Turkey and its NATO allies. Erdogan was particularly upset with Germany for not allowing him to live-stream a speech to 30,000 Turkish anti-coup demonstrators in Cologne.
Erdogan spared his sharpest rhetoric for the U.S., who he has repeatedly criticized for supposedly harboring the ringleader of the coup attempt, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is a legal resident of the U.S. and Erdogan has demanded his immediate extradition. Gulen cannot be extradited without receiving due process in a U.S. court of law. Erdogan dismissed the U.S. requirement for evidence saying, “We did not request documents for terrorists that you wanted returned.”
Turkey and the U.S. have publicly sparred over Erdogan’s purges of the military. U.S. Army General Joseph Votel voiced concern last week that many of the most effective elements of the Turkish military were being purged by Erdogan, and that U.S. efforts against ISIS may suffer. Director of National Intelligence Eric Clapper concurred with Votel last week saying, “many of our interlocutors have been purged or arrested. There’s no question that this is going to set back and make more difficult” the U.S.’s Middle East strategy.”
Erdogan responded with a now familiar line of attack accusing Votel of “taking sides with coup plotters.” Turkey’s fraying relationships with NATO pose a significant threat to U.S. strategy against ISIS and the integrity of NATO’s collective defense. The U.S. and NATO operate a base out of Incrilik that serves as the main hub for U.S. air operations against ISIS. Turkey blockaded the base on Saturday, and previously cut power to it for nearly a week likely in retaliation for the U.S. not immediately extraditing Gulen.
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