The Swiss foreign minister told his Turkish counterpart on Thursday that Switzerland would “rigorously investigate” any illegal spying by Ankara on expatriate Turks before an April 16 referendum that could expand Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.
Once forces loyal to Turkish President Erdogan had put the attempted takeover down, he called the coup attempt “a gift from God” because it provided an excuse to crack down on competitors and opponents. Using enemies lists prepared well in advance, his purges have touched more than 100,000 and sparked widespread conspiracies among Turks that the July 15 coup was Turkey’s equivalent of the Reichstag fire.