Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan watched part of the Washington D.C. protests against him turn into a brawl.
The Middle Eastern strongman’s visit to President Trump this week led to demonstrations against his regime, which recently cemented itself through a referendum giving Erdogan more power.
Video shown by Voice of America shows Erdogan in his car outside the Turkish Embassy on Tuesday, talking to a member of his team who then heads to the protest (roughly 0:13 in the clip).
Shortly afterward, chaos begins, which the police in D.C. said was a “brutal attack on peace protesters” by a member of Erdogan’s security detail.
Nine people were sent to the hospital after the fighting.
The VOA shows that the member of Erdogan’s team who went off to where the violence erupted came back (at around 1:14 in the clip) as the longtime leader in Ankara left his car and looked at the scene before heading inside.
The U.S. State Department said the episode was “deeply disturbing” and promised that an investigation would hold those responsible to account.
However, the two security detail members that were held after the brawl were released and are already back in Turkey.
The Turkish Embassy in the U.S. blamed the violence on the protesters, who included Kurds, a minority group with tensions with the Turkish government.
Lawmakers have decried what they saw as Erdogan’s attitude toward dissent making its way from the Mediterranean to America.
“This isn’t Turkey. This isn’t a third-world country,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a Thursday interview on MSNBC.
He told “Morning Joe” that he believed the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. should be thrown “the hell out” of the country because of the violence.
With News Wire Services
