Abdullah Yaman, a member of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals, has claimed that a US indictment naming former Turkish Economy Minister Mehmet Zafer Çağlayan is actually targeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose loss of power, he has said, would cause Turkey to become like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.
Yaman’s remarks came on Saturday on social media after arrest warrants were ordered from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York for former Turkish Economy Minister Çağlayan, former general manager of state-run Halkbank Süleyman Aslan, the bank’s assistant deputy manager of international banking Levent Balkan and Abdullah Happani, an employee of Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab.
Accusing the US of being a terrorist organization that bothered by Turkey’s independence and is using terrorist organizations to control Turkey, Yaman said the decision to arrest Çağlayan was strategic in that the US wanted to declare its enmity towards Turkey and form an alternative government by bringing down Erdoğan.
“I am aware that there is a significant number of people thinking ‘if only Erdoğan would leave.’ You see what kind of ‘democracy’ people saying ‘if only Gaddafi would leave’ or ‘if only Saddam would leave’ have now,” wrote Yaman.
Erdoğan on Friday had described an indictment of Turkey’s former economy minister as being politically motivated and tantamount to an attack on Ankara.
“Noting the strategic partnership between Turkey and the United States, the two leaders emphasized the importance of continuing to work together to further strengthen bilateral relations and increase stability in the region,” the Turkish Presidency said in a statement following a phone call on Saturday between the US and Turkish presidents.