Turkish Journalist: Erdogan’s FaceTime Call During 2016 Coup Was Staged

What was once believed to be a game changer during the critical moments of the Turkish coup, Erdogan’s FaceTime call would be a staged one.

When the putschist troops commandeered tanks and occupied key positions in Ankara and Istanbul in an ill-fated attempt to remove Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government from power on the night of July 15 in 2016, President Erdogan did something unexpected: he connected to an anchorwoman on CNN’s Turkish offshoot via a FaceTime call that was broadcast live on TV. In that iconic speech, Erdogan called on his supporters to confront the coup plotters.

Erdogan’s televised call put an end to an anxious wait among his core supporters by clearing the fog of ambiguity about his whereabouts, something that fueled fears that he might well have been captured by the pro-coup factions of the Turkish military when he had been absent from public view for a while. The feared scenario proved short-lived as Erdogan emerged as defiant as ever and professed his faith in his unswerving followers to combat the troops on the streets by all means necessary. That call became a turning point for the evolving course of events as hundreds of thousands of civilians quickly overwhelmed a few thousand…