The United States expressed concern that their longtime NATO ally and critical regional partner believed that Washington would try to overthrow their government calling the claims “harmful to bilateral relations.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry told Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavosoglu on Saturday that public claims suggesting that American officials masterminded the failed coup attempt in Turkey were categorically false and were harmful to relations between the two longtime NATO allies.

Kerry urged Turkey to show restraint in the wake of the coup attempt and to follow the rule of law closely in its investigation into the plot, State Department spokesman John Kirby explained in a statement.

“He made clear that the United States would be willing to provide assistance to Turkish authorities conducting this investigation, but that public insinuations or claims about any role by the United States in the failed coup attempt are utterly false and harmful to our bilateral relations,” said Kirby.

Earlier in the day Labor Minister Süleyman Soylu created a firestorm when he publicly claimed that Washington was behind the coup in Turkey.

“The US is behind the coup attempt. A few journals that are published there [in the US] have been conducting activities for several months. For many months we have sent requests to the US concerning Fethullah Gulen. The US must extradite him,” said Soylu.

The attempted coup has left 265 people dead and over 2,000 wounded across the country. Erdogan’s regime has responded by cracking down with fury imprisoning 2,745 opposition judges and arresting over 2,800 soldiers alleged sympathetic to the coup bid.