A Turkish minster has blamed the United States of being responsible for the 2016 coup against Tayyip Erdogan. Reuters. Turkey's interior minster Suleyman Soylu said that the United States managed the coup. Erdogan has long blamed the coup on Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who is now based in the United States. The State Department denied the claims. Ties between Turkey and the United States have been frayed after the United States sanctioned Turkey for buying Russian missiles.
My Comment:
I'm not sure what to think about this one. On the one hand Turkey is a dictatorship and have pretty much zero credibility. Many people think that Erdogan staged the coup himself just to get rid of his enemies and even if he didn't the tendency he has to blame Gulen for everything that goes wrong in his country makes me think he has zero credibility.
On the other hand the United States has overthrown many a government in the past and getting rid of Erdogan might have been a goal at some point. At the very least they are providing sanctuary for Fethullah Gulen, who is hated by Erdogan. I don't think he actually had all that much to do with the coup but we still let him live here.
That being said, overthrowing a NATO ally seems like a little much even for the Obama Administration, who was still in charge at that point. Doing it would be a total betrayal of an ally. It would also put hundreds of US troops at risk and jeopardize the then relevant operations in Iraq and Syria.
We would also gain almost nothing. There is no guarantee that coup plotters would be any better than what they replaced and the instability would damage our efforts in the region. Erdogan is a terrible ruler but part of the reason he is so bad is due to paranoia due to this coup attempt. I just can't see the US wanting any of that.
I also don't understand why Turkey would be making this claim. The Biden administration is in theory more open to Erdogan then Trump was and this is the kind of thing that might piss Biden off. After all he was VP when this went down and Turkey basically accused him of an act of war.
How is that supposed to cool relations between the United States and Turkey? It will have the exact opposite effect. Indeed, it might anger Biden enough that he might actually go along with what President Trump was doing. If their goal was for better relations with America then they failed miserably.
All that being said, I do kind of wish the coup had succeeded. Getting rid of Erdogan would be a good thing even if we aren't sure what would replace him. Civil rights in Turkey have faded after the coup and Erdogan himself seems to have come a bit unhinged. It would be better for everyone if he was gone but it doesn't look like he is going anywhere.
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