Coup bid clear attack on democracy: OSCE

ISTANBUL

AA photo

The July 15 coup attempt was one of the clearest examples of an attack on democracy in recent decades, a senior European politician said on Nov. 21.

Christine Muttonen, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was among the first to condemn the coup, issuing a statement the following day.

The Austrian lawmaker was among an OSCE delegation that visited Ankara a month after the coup to meet members of the government including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Parliament Speaker İsmail Kahraman and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım.

“Here in Turkey as discussed before only a few months ago we witnessed an attempted coup... one of the clearest attacks on democracy in modern times,” Muttonen said at a meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Istanbul.

“This attempted coup underlines the critical importance of strengthening democratic institutions so that they can stand up to all anti-democratic attacks,” she added.