“I will never respect those who come to power through military coups,” Erdogan said on Saturday during a nationally televised speech.
Earlier in the day, Cairo asked Turkish ambassador Huseyin Avni Botsali to leave the country, downgraded ties to the level of charge d’affaires and chose not to send its own ambassador back to Ankara.
Cairo also accused Ankara of backing organizations bent on undermining the Arab country, a reference to the 85-year-old Islamic movement Muslim Brotherhood. Ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was a leading member of the Brotherhood.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said, “(Ankara is) … attempting to influence public opinion against Egyptian interests, supported meetings of organizations that seek to create instability in the country.”
On July 3, Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that Morsi was no longer in office and declared that the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, had been appointed as the new interim president of Egypt. The army also suspended the constitution.
On July 14, Erdogan said that Morsi is the only legitimate president of Egypt. “Currently, my president in Egypt is Morsi because he was elected by the people,” he stated. “If we don’t judge the situation like that it is tantamount to ignoring the Egyptian people.”
On August 20, the Turkish prime minister said Israel was behind the overthrow of Morsi, whose administration took a number of measures against the Tel Aviv regime.
PressTV report,
Erdogan also criticized certain Islamic countries, saying they are betraying Egypt by backing the country’s military-appointed government.
“What is said about Egypt? That democracy is not the ballot box. Who is behind this? Israel is. We have the evidence in our hands,” Erdogan said. “That’s exactly what happened.”
Erdogan’s statement angered Israel, the United States, and the new government in Cairo. They strongly condemned the Turkish prime minister for speaking against the regime in Tel Aviv.
Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3. The government of Mansour has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi supporters and arrested more than 2,000 Brotherhood members, including the party’s leader, Mohamed Badie, who was detained on August 20.
About 1,000 people were killed in a week of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces after police dispersed their protest camps in a deadly operation on August 14.
The massacre sparked international condemnation and prompted world bodies to call for an independent investigation into the violence.