07 December 2016•Update: 04 April 2017
LONDON
The July 15 coup attempt in Turkey and the country’s relationship with the EU was discussed Wednesday in Britain’s parliament.
Gulnur Aybet, professor of international relations at Bahcesehir University, and Talip Kucukcan, a lawmaker from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, spoke at the event organized by the Daily Sabah Center for Policy Studies and the Democracy for All initiative.
The event was chaired by British lawmaker Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.
Speaking about the July 15 coup attempt, Kucukcan, who heads the Turkish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, stressed the unity of the Turkish people and the political parties in the country. “We saw that when there was an existential threat in Turkey, the people stood up," he said.
“There was consensus from all political parties that the Gulenist terrorist group was behind the coup," he added, referring to the Fethullah Terrorist Group (FETO), blamed for the coup.
Speaking about Turkey’s foreign policy objectives, Kucukcan said the country aims “to see a stable region” and “combats terrorism of all kind."
On Turkish-EU relations he said, "Turkey has done its homework and has met most of the benchmarks that the EU has asked for from Turkey. Turkey is committed to continuing its relations with the EU, but there are some important challenges."
For his part, Aybet described the West’s use of language and misnomers to describe the coup bid’s aftermath as “misleading and “dangerous.”
Aybet said the world stood in solidarity with the US after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, but Turkey was left to mend its own wounds in 2016.
Ankara has said FETO, which is led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, orchestrated the foiled coup, which left 248 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
Gulen is also accused of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.
