Shockwaves from failed Turkey coup rattle US and EU

From the roads of Pennsylvania and corridors of power in Washington to the public squares of Cologne and EU offices in Brussels, the shockwaves from the July 15 failed coup have gone well beyond Turkey.The aftermath of the coup has prompted a drastic sharpening in Turkish rhetoric towards the EU and US, with Ankara saying it feels let down by an apparent lack of solidarity.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing Turkey’s Western allies of supporting the plotters and taking particular offence that Germany refused to let him address a rally in Cologne via video conference.Erdogan has meanwhile warned Washington it will put relations at stake if it fails to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based preacher who Ankara accuses of being at the heart of the coup plot.“You have to be blind and deaf not to understand that he is behind all of this,” Erdogan said.Yet to Erdogan’s fury, Washington has yet to show any sign of moving against Gulen, insisting Turkey is a key partner while saying Ankara must send evidence and not just speculation.Yet the crisis has erupted at a time when the Ankara-Washington relationship is as important as ever, with the United States needing Turkish help in the battle against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.Meanwhile, the US military has also been unsettled by the sacking and arrest of nearly half of Turkey’s generals, and believed to include figures who worked closely with American forces at Turkey’s southern base of Incirlik.But Turkey is still for Washington an “essential partner in the Middle East” and will do all it can to satisfy Ankara “even if they are not going to cede on Gulen”, said Jean Marcou, Turkey expert at Sciences Po in Grenoble.Relations with the European Union –which Turkey has sought to join since the 1963 – could prove even more fraught with top officials in Brussels angering Ankara by raising concerns over the magnitude of the post-coup purge.Turkey has also grumbled that it has so far not received its promised returns under the landmark deal to stem the flow of migrants to Europe, raising alarm about the future of the deal.Having patched up a dispute with Russia over the November shooting down of a Russian war plane, Turkey could be tempted to head into the arms of Russia to counter its problems with the West.Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu contrasted the “unconditional support” Ankara received from Moscow in the wake of the coup with other countries and Erdogan will visit Russia for the first time after the bilateral crisis in August.Yet there remain a litany of problems – including Syria and Ukraine – on which Moscow and Ankara can find no harmony.Despite the Turkish rhetoric, “the Turkish-Western alliance will remain the axis on which Turkish foreign policy turns,” said Marcou.