Turkish columnist calls Perry an ‘idiot’ for Monday debate comments

Texas Gov. Rick Perry sparked controversy when he said Turkey ruled by Islamic terrorists. (Getty)

Turkey's press has not reacted kindly to comments made by Texas governor Rick Perry during the South Carolina GOP debate Monday night in which he described Turkey's moderate Islamic leadership as Islamic terrorists.
Turkey is "a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists," Perry said, in response to a question about whether Turkey, a top American ally, should remain a member of the NATO alliance.
The NATO ally had moved "'far away' from the country in which he'd served as a U.S. Air Force pilot in the 1970s," Perry said.
"Rick Perry: what an idiot," was the reaction from top Turkish Hurriyet Daily News columnist Mustafa Akyol on Twitter, according to CNN's Ivan Watson and Yesim Comert.
Turkey's main state broadcaster TRT added, "The debate that the Republican candidate Rick Perry attended on American Fox TV turned into a scandal that contained very ugly statements about Turkey," also according to CNN.
Gov. Perry's foreign policy adviser Victoria Coates later acknowledged that Turkey is a "hinge point between east and west," ABC News' Arlette Saenz reported after the debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Monday.
But Coates defended Perry's controversial description, explaining that Turkey under its Justice and Peace Party leadership has in recent years moved to express sympathy for Hamas-controlled Gaza and cooled its once warm relationship with Israel. She also noted the 2009 Gaza aid flotilla that departed from a Turkish port that got into a clash with Israeli commandos in which eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed.
Echoing the moderator's question from Monday night's debate, the adviser also described Turkey as tolerating violence against women—without citing any evidence to back up the highly controversial contention.
"The governor was responding to the questioner's references to violence against women and to association with Hamas, I think both of which are things that many people do associate as he said with Islamic terrorists," Coates said in the post-debate spin room, according to Saenz. "He was referring to those things, and while he would welcome the opportunity to work with Turkey on regional issues like Syria or Iraq, this kind of behavior on the part of that country is disturbing and I think we should concerned about it."
"What he said was that many people associate that kind of behavior with that of Islamic terrorists," Coates said. "I think also their support for the flotilla against Israel this fall. It's deeply concerning, and I think it's something any future American president needs to be aware of."
The Turkish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a query from Yahoo News Tuesday about Perry's comments.