Turkey Damns Remarks Made By Biden Against Its Leader

Turkey on Sunday castigate and damned remarks made by US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden criticising President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and calling for support for the Turkish leader’s opponents.

Biden made the comments in an interview filmed by the New York Times in December but a video of the remarks only appeared on Saturday before going viral on social media.

Asked about Erdogan, Biden described the Turkish president as an “autocrat”, criticised his policy towards the Kurds and advocated supporting the Turkish opposition.

“What I think we should be doing is taking a very different approach to him now, making it clear that we support opposition leadership,” Biden said.

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He noted that it was necessary to “embolden” Erdogan’s rivals to allow them “to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process.”

The comments did not provoke much reaction when they were published in the New York Times in January, but the video of the interview triggered an angry response from Turkey.

Biden’s statements also embarrassed Erdogan’s opponents, who the Turkish government regularly accuses of being in the pay of foreign powers.

Several officials of the main opposition CHP party quickly distanced themselves from Biden’s remarks, calling for “respect for the sovereignty of Turkey”.