"I didn’t have the heart to tell my dinner companions this, but the Turkish government’s unqualified condemnation of Morsi’s overthrow stems less from a concern for the Egyptian people than a desire to recast its own troubles at home. It suits Erdogan to play the role of the victim by portraying the recent demonstrations in Turkey as attempts to foment a coup against him; they simply cannot appear as legitimate protests against his abuses of power. Water cannons and pepper spray had to be deployed to control dissent, Erdogan is signaling. Because what happened in Egypt cannot be allowed to happen in Turkey." Andrew Finkel, foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-languag newspapers.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 23:09:04 +0000