Last week’s failed military coup in Turkey sent shockwaves throughout the Middle East – especially in Egypt, whose military government under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was rattled by the news of the Turkish people rejecting military takeover outright.
As many observers have reported, almost every part of Turkish society - citizens, police, even other soldiers stood against the coup attempt. But for a militarily-governed nation like Egypt that relies on respect for the army to maintain order, the events in Turkey are alarming. So much so, in fact, that Egypt blocked a recent attempt by the UN Security Council to condemn the military takeover – being the only nation on the 15 member Security Council to do so.
The reasoning behind Egypt’s refusal was a line in the decree that would call on all nations to “respect the democratically elected government of Turkey”. According to Egypt’s diplomat to the UN Amr Abulatta, no nation has the ability to declare whether a nation’s government was truly “democratically elected” or not – the Turkish government under president Reccip Tayyep Erdogan being no exception.
The hostility between Turkey and Egypt is not a new phenomenon; Erdogan has long been a staunch critic of Sisi’s government that came to power in 2013 by deposing then-president Muhammad Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood government was democratically elected after the 2011 Arab Spring.
Morsi was once a close political ally to Erdogan’s right-wing AKP party, with both he and the Turkish president being elected on Islamist platforms. The parallels between the two situations are obvious – though Erdogan was able to withstand a coup attempt with popular support from Turkish citizens whereas Morsi was replaced by military rule.
Just today, the Egyptian foreign ministry lashed out at Erdogan during a press briefing in response to earlier comments by the Turkish president on the legitimacy of the Egyptian regime. The spokesperson for the foreign ministry told members of the press: "[Erdogan] is continuing to confuse matters and lose the compass of sound judgment”.
“Among the issues which the Turkish president confuses the most”, the spokesperson from the foreign ministry continued, “is the ability to distinguish between a full-fledged popular revolution where over 30 million Egyptians went out demanding the armed forces' support, and military coups by definition.”
Mass demonstrations did take place in the streets of Turkey last week, though the overwhelming majority were in support of the Turkish government. From Erdogan’s point of view, el-Sisi’s success in 2013 is very much like what Turkish government avoided last week.
JC
