Unless the United States starts respecting Turkey’s sovereignty and proves that it understands the dangers that our nation faces, our partnership could be in jeopardy.He basically puts the blame for tensions between his government and the US on the movement led by Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives on a compound in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
Assuming Erdogan is not just full of ka-ka and aware that he is, why doesn't he offer helpful details regarding why he's so sure the 2016 coup attempt was the work of the Gulen movement, or for that matter just why his Justice and Development Party had such a falling-out with it, when they'd been allies? The Gulen movement doesn't appear to be some kind of firebrand militant outfit with some severe ideology. Quite the contrary, it seems to have a rather mellow position on mosque-state relations, modernity, and market-based economics.
And Erdogan's puffed-up righteousness regarding Evangelical Presbyterian minister Andrew Brunson, currently under house arrest after languishing in a Turkish jail, is similarly lacking in any specific substantiation. Cites "charges of aiding a terrorist organization." That would be the aforementioned Gulen movement.
From what I can tell, the claim of Brunson's association with the Gulen movement hinges on the testimony of an undisclosed witness, and the fact that Brunson's daughter sent her dad an iPhone photo of a pan of maqluba, a Turkish casserole that is, according to the prosecution, commonly eaten by Gulen followers. This strikes me as pretty damn flimsy. Maqluba is a popular dish throughout the Levant.
No witnesses for the defense were called to the stand during his May hearing.
This follows the pattern revealed in Erdogan's past crackdowns and justifications therefore.
I think we're pretty much just looking at yet another leader of a nation-state who become intoxicated with the notion of power, and who has to have some enemies on deck against which to rally his base.
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