Bagis responds to an article on the Wall Street Journal

In response to an article published on The Wall Street Journal by academic Fouad Ajami entitled "What to expect from the Muslim Brotherhood," EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis sent a letter to the daily. In his letter, Bagis wrote that it was "preposterous that a past, which Turkey had buried, is proposed as a future for brotherly Egypt." Bagis stated that a civilian government with a puppet image under the military's custodial rule is not the Turkish model, adding, "We utterly and categorically reject this slander. That political sham may have been an unfortunate imposition on Turkey but is now dead and buried. That model means corruption, political assassinations, death squads, political polarization, looted banks, 110% inflation and a closed economy based on pillaging. If these fiction writers need a ‘model’ for this sham, the correct term is not the Turkish, but the Baathist model. This is the model currently followed in Damascus. This model won't last long and certainly cannot be imposed on Cairo." Bagis also wrote that Turkey has been healing through the democratic mandate bestowed on the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the last 10 years. "Our pro-EU path is irreversible, and we ultimately aim to upgrade our nation and elevate our political, economic and democratic standards to those of the European Union. We cannot and will not condone any political system that falls short of addressing the full democratic aspirations of its people. This includes the brotherly Egyptian people and certainly the oppressed and proud Syrian people," Bagis added.