![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/636056661420499143-ap16214568836791jpg.jpg\")
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, right, and U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, talk during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey, on Aug. 1, 2016. Dunford visited U.S. military personnel stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Hakan Goktepe\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of the meetings, U.S. joint staff spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said Dunford would “deliver messages condemning in the strongest terms the recent coup attempt.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hicks said the general would also reaffirm “the importance of our enduring partnership for regional security,” citing operations out of the Incirlik air base against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, and Turkey’s contributions to NATO and the fight against the Islamic State group<\/p>\n\n\n\n While in Ankara, Dunford was taken on a tour of the Parliament building, which was bombed during the night of July 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a small protest held near the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, demonstrators held up placards reading “Dunford go home, send us Fethullhah,” and “Get out coup plotter Dunford.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the foreign ministry summoned Germany’s charge d’affaires in Ankara to discuss a German court decision that prevented Erdogan from addressing via video link a Sunday rally in the German city of Cologne denouncing the coup attempt and showing support for Erdogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court ruled that messages from speakers elsewhere, such as politicians in Turkey, could not be shown on a video screen at the rally, which was attended by about 30,000-40,000 people. A message from Erdogan was read out instead. Germany is home to roughly 3 million people with Turkish roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Speaking after a cabinet meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Germany’s action was contrary to freedom of speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kurtulmus said German courts normally address cases very slowly, “yet the German Constitutional Court prohibited our president addressing the rally via teleconference in less than 24 hours. This is a clear double standard.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n German officials insist there was no wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The decision not to allow the broadcast was absolutely OK and also lawful,” German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this grab made from video, U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, center, inspects damage done to the parliament building during the coup attempt on July 15, in Ankara, Turkey<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: NTV via AP<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Relations between the two countries have soured since the German Parliament voted June 2 to label the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n European officials and human rights groups have expressed increasing concern with the Turkish crackdown, in which nearly 70,000 people have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs in sectors including the civil service, education, the judiciary, health care and the media. Authorities say they are suspected of involvement with Gulen’s movement, which runs schools, charities, hospitals and businesses across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 18,000 people have been detained, most of them from the military, while the government has issued decrees bringing the powerful armed forces more under civilian control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some 3,000 officers suspected of involvement in the coup or of links to Gulen’s movement have been discharged from the armed forces since the failed attempt and Defense Minister Fikri Isik told CNN Turk television in an interview Monday that the purges from the military would continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isik said 311 military personnel believed to have participated in the coup were still on the run \u2014 including nine generals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkey had also canceled this year’s Aug. 30 Victory Day military parades because of the “extraordinary situation,” the minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kurtulmus said anyone associated with Gulen’s movement would be purged from the public sector and his government “will show no mercy” toward suspects linked to the coup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Citizens who don’t have any relationship with this organization have nothing to worry about, they should rest easy nothing will happen to you, but those who do should fear,” the deputy prime minister said. “Sorry, but everything has a price.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cinar Kiper in Istanbul and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkey summoned a German diplomat Monday over a court decision that prevented President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from addressing a demonstration in Germany, while the top U.S. military official visited Ankara as Turkey navigated through increasingly strained relations with key allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3206,1578],"class_list":["post-90136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QNPTDARZFRGZTPIMZ3OEDD2MF4","arc_canonical_url":"\/2016\/08\/01\/turkey-navigates-tense-relations-with-key-allies\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/636056661403339033-ap16214569851123jpg.jpg\")