Turkey’s Erdogan accuses West of ‘supporting coup plotters’

Turkey’s president has accused the West of “supporting terrorism” and said the coup in his country was organised by foreign powers.

“Despite everything, I feel sad that I failed to reveal the true face of this traitor organisation long before”, Erdogan said in a televised speech, referring to Gulen’s network which Turkey alleges is a terror group.

“Instead of thanking this government for thwarting this coup attempt, and for (maintaining) democracy, you are standing by the (plotters)”, Erdogan said, according to Anadolu Agency. “Unfortunately, the West is supporting terrorism, and siding with coups”.

Turkey dismissed almost 1,400 more members of its armed forces and stacked the top military council with government ministers on Sunday, moves designed by President Tayyip Erdogan to put him in full control of the military after a failed coup.

Turkey meanwhile issued arrest warrants for about 100 staff, including doctors, at Ankara’s main military hospital, and even fired football referees in a new phase of the crackdown after the failed coup that has seen some 18,000 detained and caused global consternation.

Turkey has demanded the extradition of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government says instigated the coup, but Washington has asked for evidence of the cleric’s involvement, saying the extradition process must take its course. Erdem, who is also head of Royal Dutch Shell’s Turkey unit, said another invite was sent by TOBB, the Ankara-based Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, to global companies that work with its members. “The actors inside acted out a scenario for a coup written from the outside”, the Turkish president stated. “We need to have Turkey respect democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms”, she said at a meeting of 28 European Union foreign ministers, alongside U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

President Erdogan claimed that foreign parties were involved in last month’s failed coup against his government stating that it “was not just an event planned from the inside”.

Germany’s Constitutional Court issued the ban to prohibit the live stream, which was proposed by organisers of a pro-Erdogan demonstration on Sunday that drew an estimated 40,000 people to the western German city.

After a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Kurtulmus said Washington would have to choose between support for a “terrorist chief” and the citizens of Turkey.

“America keeps asking us for documents and evidence”.

U.S. state department spokesman John Kirby said Erdogan “is certainly free to express his views and his frustrations as he sees fit”. They were suspects, ‘ he said.

“So far, nobody from the EU, or the European Council [the EU’s heads of government/state] has visited Turkey”, the president said. “Nobody had any imagination that they could start a military coup, killing people and shelling parliament”.

Ahead of the meetings, USA joint staff spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said Dunford would “deliver messages condemning in the strongest terms the recent coup attempt”.