Did Egypt Experience a Coup? The West May Not Be Sure, but Turkey Is

In a speech on July 5, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to split hairs, insisting that “no matter where or against whom, coups are damaging and inhuman, and directed against the people, the national will and democracy.” He also took Western countries to task for insisting that Egyptians’ disaffection with Morsi, as well as the sheer scale of the recent protests against him, justified, in some sense, his overthrow. “There is no such a thing as a democratic coup,” Erdogan quipped. “It is as much a paradox as the living dead.” By refusing to call things by their name, he added, the West, and the E.U. in particular, “had once again disregarded its own principles.”

No wonder why Erdogan asserts just now that there is no such thing as a democratic coup. Do you think he would rush to condemn the opposition in Egypt, should the Gezi Park incident and the following demonstrations have never happened?