SINCE the 1960s, whenever Turkey’s meddlesome generals have seized power, Turks have accused America of being responsible. After the botched coup attempt on July 15th by a cabal of mid-ranking generals and junior officers, the old reflex appeared again. Turkey’s labour minister, Suleyman Soylu, declared that America was behind the attempt to overthrow the country’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (He vaguely cited the “activities” of unnamed American magazines as proof.) Pro-government media outlets teemed with conspiracy theories. In a column in Yenis Safak, a daily newspaper, Mustafa Unal, an MP from Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development party (AK), claimed that American army officers took part in the fighting. In previous decades such rants could be shrugged off. But this time they are part of an increasingly severe diplomatic crisis.
The reaction from John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, was uncharacteristically stiff. In a phone call to his Turkish opposite number, Mevlut Cavusoglu, on July 16th Mr Kerry said insinuations that America had played any role in the coup were “utterly false and harmful to our...Continue reading
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