-Tayyip Erdogan lashes out at French journalist
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PARIS - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday lashed out at a French reporter who asked him about claims that Ankara sent arms to Syria.
Erdogan told the journalist he was talking like a member of an outlawed group blamed for last year's failed coup in Turkey.
After Erdogan's talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the reporter asked about a story from 2015 in the Cumhuriyet newspaper which allegedly proved Turkey had sent weapons to Syria.
Erdogan has always pinned the scandal on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Turkey blames Gulen for the 2016 failed coup and accuses him of running a group called the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO). Gulen denies the charges.
"Those are the words of FETO. You should learn not to speak with the words of FETO," Erdogan told the journalist after asking him to repeat the question.
The journalist could be heard insisting in French: "I am speaking as a journalist!"
"When you ask your questions, be careful on this point. And do not speak with the words of another," warned the Turkish leader.
"And I want you to know, you do not have someone before you who will easily swallow this," Erdogan added.
The issue had first erupted in January 2014 when prosecutors in southern Turkey uncovered trucks heading to Syria that they said were National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) vehicles stuffed with arms.
Ankara later charged those involved in the probe with membership of the Gulen movement.
"Those who carried out those operations were Gulenist prosecutors. Now they are in prison," said Erdogan icily.
In apparent reference to American arms supplies to Syrian Kurdish militia that have angered Turkey, he added: "You ask me that question but why don't you ask me why the United States sent 4,000 trucks with arms to Syria?"
