MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Duncan noted that the United Kingdom "totally" understood the scale of the destructive events that had unfolded on July 15, 2016 and what Turkey went through.
"I and the UK have tried to explain to other countries and other ministers the need to understand how traumatic and seismic this experience was in Turkey and it threatened the entire stability and existence of the state," Duncan said at a press conference with Turkey's Minister for EU Affairs Omer Celik in Ankara.
"I said it before but I will say it again. If this has happened in the United Kingdom, it is the equivalent of a regiment of the army marching down the Whitehall, shooting people on Westminster Bridge, trying to kill the queen and the prime minister, bombing parliament while it was sitting, and taking over the BBC," Duncan said.
The failed military takeover claimed 240 lives and injured some 2,000. Ankara has accused Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric, of masterminding the coup, an allegation he has denied.
