US says Turkish coup claims 'wholly false'

The US State Department said on Thursday assertions by Turkish officials that the United States was involved in a failed 2016 coup in Turkey were “wholly false.”

In a statement issued after Turkey’s interior minister accused the United States of being behind the coup, the State Department said such “remarks and other unfounded and irresponsible claims of US responsibility for events in Turkey are inconsistent with Turkey’s status as a NATO Ally and strategic partner of the United States.”

On Thursday, Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu accused the United States of being behind a 2016 failed coup that Ankara has blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.

Soylu told Hurriyet the United States had managed the coup attempt while Fethullah Gulen's network carried it out, adding "Europe was enthusiastic about it," reaffirming a view he said he had been expressing since the putsch.

"It is blatantly clear the United States is behind July 15. It was FETO who carried it out upon their orders," he said.

Ankara has long blamed Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan who lives in Pennsylvania, and launched a widespread crackdown on his network, which Ankara refers to by the acronym FETO. Gulen denies any involvement.

Turkey has undertaken purges of its military and other state institutions following the failed coup.