ISTANBUL -- A Turkish prosecutor has opened an investigation into 17 people accused of fomenting last year's failed coup, including many prominent U.S. officials, academics and politicians, state news media reported Saturday.
Among those placed under investigation by the chief prosecutor in Istanbul are John Brennan, the former CIA chief; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; and David Cohen, the head of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, according to the Anadolu Agency, a state-run news wire.
The investigation was announced the day before a national referendum to expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leading analysts to speculate that the two events were linked.
Throughout the campaign, Erdogan and his allies have frequently entered diplomatic spats with European countries, in what some analysts described as a bid to persuade nationalist voters to vote "yes" to his proposed overhauls to secure Turkey's place in the world.
The accusations against the Americans might have been launched with similar intentions, said Soner Cagaptay, the author of a coming biography of Erdogan, The New Sultan.
"The 'yes' camp still doesn't feel safe. It's still searching for foreign enemies and conspiracies to mobilize nationalist and Islamist support," said Cagaptay, a Turkey researcher at the Washington Institute, a think tank.
The investigation may also be a tit-for-tat response to the recent arrest in New York of an executive from a state-owned Turkish bank, according to Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
"It's partly: You're arresting our people, we can do the same to you," said Barkey, who was among those placed under investigation.
Bharara, who was ousted from office last month by the Trump administration, had opened an investigation into Reza Zarrab, a wealthy Turkish trader with connections to Erdogan. Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a Turkish banker, was arrested as part of that case after Bharara was fired.
The investigation may also be a reflection of Turkey's dwindling hopes of involvement in the U.S.-led campaign to take Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State, analysts said. Or it may have been begun by an overzealous prosecutor seeking to demonstrate his loyalty to Erdogan or his party, Cagaptay said.
"These may not be centralized efforts coming from [party] leaders but may come from more low-level people who act in such ways that they think they're mirroring the great leader," Cagaptay said.
A Section on 04/16/2017