Erdoğan's communications director slams Bolton's book, praises Trump

Photo: AA/File

Presidency's communications director has criticized a new book by former US National Security Advisor John Bolton in a series of tweets, saying it included "misleading accounts of conversations" between the presidents of the two countries.

In his book, Bolton made several allegations regarding the relationship between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his US counterpart Donald Trump, including the latter's intervention in a lawsuit against Turkey's state-owned Halkbank in the US.

Trump tends to "give personal favors to dictators he liked," Bolton says in the book, referring to Erdoğan and China's President Xi Jinping.

"We find it reprehensible that former high-level officials attempt to use serious diplomatic conversations and efforts to resolve outstanding issues between allies like the US and Turkey for their domestic political agendas," said Fahrettin Altun, alluding to Bolton.

Altun said Bolton's book included "one-sided" and "manipulative" representations of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's conversations with his American counterpart Donald Trump.

"It is clear that the goals of these mischaracterizations and falsehoods are driven by domestic political considerations as well as personal gain," he asserted.

Stressing that Erdoğan and Trump put great effort into repairing their countries' relations despite "deep differences" in policies and "some hostile voices toward Turkey in Washington," he went on to say that Trump had done a lot more listening to NATO ally Turkey compared to some of the previous US administrations.

"We are confident that the US-Turkey relationship will survive such efforts and even thrive in the end. President Erdoğan will continue his frank, honest and straightforward conversations with US President Donald Trump," he said. (VK)