Western media aim to 'tarnish' Turkey's image: Experts

ANKARA

Western press coverage regarding Turkey appears to undermine the country's survival of a coup attempt last week, and to mute the country's voice in the international arena, experts have said.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Saban Kardas, president of the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM) based in Ankara, criticized the western media coverage of the Fetullah Gulen terrorist organization’s coup attempt in Turkey.

“Western media’s attitude is a dark stain on them within the scope of Turkey’s democracy experiences,” he said.

Kardas said western media constantly criticizing Turkey’s government aimed to make Ankara focus increasingly internal politics and “diminish its voice on foreign policy.”

“The attitude of western media was more like a ‘wait and see’ kind of an approach. They were hesitant on seeing the coup attempt as an interruption of democracy,” Kardas said.

“There seems to be an approach by the western coverage that would have approved the new political conjuncture if the coup had succeeded,” he said.

Kardas added that the perpetrators of the failed coup “underestimated” its threat to Turkish society and political structure.

The chairman of ORSAM also said he had met foreign journalists.

“A person asked me if the coup attempt was anti-democratic,” Kardas said. “I would think that with that kind of attitude, they thought a democratic outcome would emerge after the coup if it had succeeded.”

“Unfortunately, their read on the situation was like this, a poor understanding.”

 'They did not take the side of democracy'

Ilnur Cevik, a key advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said to Anadolu Agency that certain U.S.-based media outlets “completely took the side of” the coup attempt in the first hours.

“They even said: ‘Turkey is being saved [by the coup]’ in their broadcasts,” Cevik noted. “For example, the ‘experts’ on Fox News said: 'Hopefully the coup plotters will succeed’.”

“The foreign media outlets did not stand for democracy,” Cevik said. “Nobody stood behind us.”

The presidential advisor also said western media outlets displayed people’s taking to streets as in “Erdogan is supported by 52 percent of voters in Turkey, they stood behind Erdogan and claimed the victory.”

“Nobody is mentioning the battle for democracy, they only say Erdogan’s voters supported him,” Cevik said. “We saw that people protected their democratic values by standing in front of tanks. They only try to say it was an effort to see Erdogan prevail.”

 ‘Real purpose’

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Prof. Muhittin Ataman, general coordinator deputy of the Ankara-based Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation (SETA), said the July 15 failed coup “showed the Turkish people’s strong devotion to democratic values.”

“Western media do not want to see the democratic structure triumph in Turkey,” Ataman said. “For the last three to four years, all of western media coverage has targeted Erdogan by saying that Turkey [under Erdogan’s rule] has become more ‘authoritarian’.”

Ataman said “the real purpose” behind western media coverage was to “target Turkey’s stable economic and political structure.”

“They are doing it subtly, not directly,” Ataman added. “They know that Erdogan is the current symbol of Turkey’s political stability.”

Ataman also criticized a July 16 article in U.S. magazine Foreign Policy, headlined “Why Turkey’s Coup d’Etat Failed”.

In the article, political analyst Edward Luttwak asserted that President Erdogan’s “craven excesses” paved the way for the coup.

Luttwak wrote: “Erdogan has been doing everything possible to dismantle Turkey’s fragile democracy: from ordering the arrest of journalists who criticized him, including the outright seizure and closure of the country’s largest newspaper, Zaman…”

Luttwak failed to mention, however, that the Zaman daily was, until recently, run by the Gulen movement, which is believed to have orchestrated last week’s failed coup attempt.

“This article is full of ignorance and intellectual dishonesty,” said Ataman, who went on to note that the media were “the strongest tool to create perception.”

Ataman said he believed that “certain forces” were intentionally trying to tarnish the image of Turkey among the western public.

The deadly coup attempt began late on July 15 when rogue elements of the Turkish military tried to overthrow the country's democratically elected government, killing 246 people and injuring more than 2,100 others.

Turkey's government said last Friday’s attempted coup was organized by followers of U.S.-based preacher Fetullah Gulen, who is accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as a parallel state.