Erdogan tells West `mind your own business`

International Desk: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday told the EU and US to ‘mind your own business’ after the West expressed alarm over the growing crackdown against suspected coup plotters, as a court placed 17 journalists under arrest.

Turkey has detained more than 18,000 people over the coup which Ankara blames on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, with the relentless crackdown sparking warnings from Brussels that its EU membership bid may be in danger.

‘Some people give us advice. They say they are worried. Mind your own business! Look at your own deeds,’ Erdogan said in a speech at his presidential palace.

‘Not a single person has come to give condolences either from the European Union... or from the West,’ said Erdogan.

‘And then they say that ‘Erdogan has got so angry’!’ he fumed.

‘Those countries or leaders who are not worried about Turkey’s democracy, the lives of our people, its future — while being so worried about the fate of the putschists — cannot be our friends.’

Erdogan vowed to take all steps ‘within the limits of the law’ as Turkey seeks legal retribution for the perpetrators of the coup.

A Turkish official said 3,500 of those detained have now been released after questioning.

Source: agencies

risingbd/Dhaka/July 30, 2016/Nasim