By Tutku Umac

ANKARA 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that if the July 15 coup attempt had succeeded the international media would legitimize it as they did the 2013 military takeover in Egypt.

“If the coup attempt became successful at that night, the international media, which pretends like it is an apostle of freedom, would use all its cameras, pens available to legitimize the coup,” he said at the opening night of TRT World, the state-run broadcaster’s English news channel.

He said those who criticized the government over media freedom were the supporters of terrorism.

“They have already done this in the past… the blood-guilty murderer coup plotters would be shown as the ‘democracy heroes’ in just the same way [they were] in Egypt,” Erdogan added. “But they could not become successful. The headlines were ready but all of them went to waste.”

The July 15 coup attempt resulted in 246 deaths. Egypt's first freely elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted by the military in 2013 after a year in office.