Free Republic

The Erdogan regime continues to play with fire renewing accusations that the United States spearheaded a complex conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government. A Turkish prosecutor claims that the CIA and FBI provided training to followers of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara initially called the “mastermind” of the failed attempt to overthrow the Erdogan regime on July 15 that left hundreds dead and thousands more wounded. An indictment, prepared by the Edirne Public Prosecutor’s office and submitted to the local Second Heavy Penal Court, seeks the harshest possible punishment for 43 suspected coup plotters. In the indictment, the...

ISTANBUL — A Turkish newspaper reported that an American academic and former State Department official had helped orchestrate a violent conspiracy to topple the Turkish government from a fancy hotel on an island in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul. The same newspaper, in a front-page headline, flat-out said the United States had tried to assassinate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of the failed coup. When another pro-government newspaper asked Turks in a recent poll conducted on Twitter which part of the United States government had supported the coup plotters, the C.I.A. came in first, with 69 percent,...

Turkey's president on Tuesday accused the West of "supporting terror and standing by" those who plotted last month's attempted coup, just 24 hours after the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff traveled to Ankara in an attempt to diffuse tensions between the NATO allies. The incident is the latest indication that Washington is underestimating the degree to which Turkey's leadership genuinely believes that the US is complicit in the coup attempt, not least because of its willingness to harbor an exiled cleric and former political leader accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of plotting the uprising. Accusations...