Turkey calls presentations of Erdogan-Trump conversations in Bolton's book 'misleading'

Turkey called the conversations between US President Donald Trump and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned in John Bolton’s new book “manipulative” and “misleading”. Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish presidency’s communications director, said that the goal of “mischaracterizations” and “falsehoods” are driven by domestic political considerations as well as personal gain.

Bolton’s new book 'The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir' which gives a comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration. According to Simon & Schuster, the former NSA has produced a “precise rendering” of his days in and around the Oval Office. In the book, Bolton wrote that Erdogan sent a memo to Trump saying Turkish state lender Halkbank, accused of violating Iranian sanctions, was innocent.

The case was being investigated by the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and, according to the book, Trump said that the Southern District prosecutors were not “his people”. Bolton wrote that Trump promised to take care of things and it would be fixed when they were replaced by “his people”.

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Berman's removal raises questions

Interestingly, US Attorney General William Barr recently announced abrupt removal of district’s Attorney Geoffrey Berman whose office has also been investigating Rudolph Giuliani, the personal lawyer of Trump. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler had said in a statement that the whole thing smacks of corruption and incompetence, adding that neither the President nor the Department of Justice has offered any explanation for Berman’s purported dismissal.

However, in a series of tweets, Altun wrote that the two leaders have expended great effort to repair and keep stable the US-Turkey relationship despite “deep differences” and some “hostile voices toward Turkey in Washington, DC”. He emphasised that Trump has done “a lot more listening” to a key NATO ally than some of the previous administrations.

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