Turkey charges West with double standards over Egypt

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has renewed his scathing rhetorical attacks on Western powers for "failing to describe events in Egypt as a coup against democracy." Speaking at a news conference with the visiting Thai counterpart, late on Friday, Erdogan attacked the European Union for "adopting double standards" toward the events in Egypt. The EU "contradicts itself when it backs down from recognizing the democratic principles and when it fails to acknowledge that what has happened in Egypt is a coup against democracy," the premier said. "Democracy does not accept double standards and this what the West is practicing now, for it fails to call the military coup against President (Mohamed) Morsi as a coup," Erdogan said, praising decision of the African Union to suspend Egypt's membership after the dismissal of Morsi by the military. He denied reports that Morsi had sought political asylum in Turkey and disclosed that he has "information that Morsi would be put on trial," warning such an eventuality would be a historic blunder. For his part, President Abdullah Gul slammed "the army intervention (in politics) in Egypt as an obstruction to democracy," calling for speedy elections. Changing President Morsi should have been done in democratic elections, that was the avenue through which he had come to power, Gul stressed. Egypt witnessed wide-scale demonstrations over the night by pro and anti-Morsi activists. The protests included violence that claimed at least 30 deaths and left scores others wounded. Morsi was ousted by the military earlier this week following public protests against his rule by a coalition of mainly non-Islamic parties.