ANKARA today condemned remarks by White House hopeful Joe Biden criticising President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and calling for support for the Turkish leader’s opponents.

Biden made the comments in an interview filmed by The New York Times last December, but a video of the remarks only appeared yesterday before going viral on social media.

Asked about Erdogan, the Democrat described the Turkish president as an “autocrat”, criticised his policy towards the Kurds and advocated supporting the Turkish opposition.

“What I think we should be doing is take a very different approach to him now, make it clear that we support opposition leadership.”

He said it is necessary to “embolden” Erdogan’s rivals to allow them “to take on and defeat Erdogan. Not by a coup, not by a coup, but by the electoral process”.

The comments did not provoke much reaction when they were published in NYT in January, but the clip of the interview triggered an angry response from Turkey.

“The analysis of Turkey by @JoeBiden is based on pure ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy,” tweeted Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin.

“The days of ordering Turkey around are over. But if you still think you can try, be our guest. You will pay the price.”

Biden’s statements also embarrassed Erdogan’s opponents, who the government regularly accuses of being in the pay of foreign powers.

Several officials from the main opposition CHP party quickly distanced themselves from Biden’s remarks, calling for “respect for the sovereignty of Turkey”.

Some Biden critics are expecting a possible deterioration of already testy relations between Ankara and Washington if he manages to defeat Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November.

Erdogan, who, in recent years, has worked to cultivate a personal relationship with Trump, often lashes out at the latter’s predecessor, Barack Obama. Biden was Obama’s vice-president.

Relations between the countries were strained during Obama’s second term, particularly due to disagreements on Syria and growing international criticism over freedoms and rights in Turkey. – AFP, August 16, 2020.