Normalization With Russia Not An Alternative To Good Relations With Ukraine – Deputy Turkish PM

What You Need To Know:

✅ After this summer's coup attempt in Turkey, the country's orientation changed fast with Turkey repairing its relations with Russia;
✅ “Our normalization with Russia is not an alternative to our good relations with Ukraine;”
✅ Smisek explains that the coup on July 15th, tried to destroy Turkish democracy, and those that were arrested were either directly involved in the violence or part of a secret network;
✅ “If we made mistakes, we’ll rectify it.”

After this summer's coup attempt in Turkey, the country's orientation changed fast with Turkey repairing its relations with Russia, frozen after the country shot down a Russian fighter jet in November of last year. Russia was one of the first countries to express support for Turkish President Erdogan during the coup, leaving many in Ukraine wondering whether the country can continue to count on Turkey as an ally against Russia. Mehmet Simsek, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey says that Ukraine and Turkey have a special relationship : “Our normalization with Russia is not an alternative to our good relations with Ukraine.”

Simsek explains that the coup on July 15th, tried to destroy Turkish democracy, and those that were arrested were either directly involved in the violence or part of a secret network. “This religious cult, since the 1970s has been infiltrating various government agencies including the army, the judiciary and the police.”

While there have been numerous accounts of torture against the coup’s perpetrators in prison, Simsek says Turkey has “zero tolerance for torture.” He adds that Turkey is moving towards a European model and that “if we made mistakes, we’ll rectify it.”

Nataliya Gumenyuk spoke to Mehmet Simsek, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey at the YES Conference in September 2016 in Kyiv.