Coup Underway in Turkey

[David Guyatt]

Be careful who you trust:

D8 News has verified that Turkish daily Yeni Şafak attempted to cover up after publishing a falsified video which frames Beyaz Show audience members as PKK supporters using doctored audio samples. The fake news video, published by Yeni Şafak at or around 5:10 PM Turkish time on Saturday, 16 January (2016), consisted of a clip purportedly from Beyaz Show, where a group of studio audience members chant slogans in support of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of outlawed Kurdish separatist group PKK. In fact, the chants were in support of Ayşe Çelik, a caller who dialled into the show a week earlier to highlight the human cost of violence in the country's war-torn southeast regions.

https://d8news.com/yeni-safak-coverup-fo...-video-225


Here's a Fort-Russ article blaming the Turks for the Sinai shootdown (as well as the SU-24), accuses Turkey of funding Crimean terrorists, and Erdogan of attempting to restore the Ottoman Empire.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/...LxJC4TA6lo

I have noted that you are employing techniques of your profession in the sense of defence counsel casting doubt. Which is fair enough, of course.

That being the case you will be very much aware of the weight of precision of statements made. So far as I am aware there is no public evidence reliably fingering anyone for responsibility for the Sinai Metrojet bombing (not shootdown), and, therefore, the opposite is true also - most players remain in the frame.

The Fort Russ report on Sinai actually was all about the SU-24 shootdown and only mentioned the Sinai event once - in passing - with these words:

"Some experts do not rule out even the involvement of Turkish and Qatari security services in the tragedy with the Russian airplane in Sinai, though officially this hypothesis has never been voiced."

Which seems fair comment given the caveats presented in that sentence.


Besides Fort Russ, fingering US General John F Campbell for responsibility for the coup is a Turkish state story and not that of Fort Russ (who are reporting on Turkey's position). Thus such stalwarts of the journalistic profession (sic) as the Daily Star and Daily Mail say much the same thing.

Meanwhile, the meme of Erdogan restoring an Ottoman Empire is very, very widespread, so nothin at all unusual in that, as any number of observers have been saying the same thing.