Though Turkey and the United States share strong strategic relations over the years, the spokeswoman and the press attaché for the US embassy to Turkey, Sarah Grow had shared a tweet by a fugitive Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) member on her personal social media account on Thursday afternoon in which was addressing excessive allegations against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey where Grow then claimed it was a result of an accidental hand action and underlined that the tweet did not reflect her views.
The US embassy official's "accidental" social media sharing has caused debates on the social media platform where it was to be defined as a "diplomatic discourtesy" if Grow did not clarify the situation. However, though the US embassy official did claim it was an accidental sharing, the tweet remained in her account as she did not remove the tweet even though she realized it was an "accident." Commenting on the matter, diplomatic sources from the embassy told Daily Sabah that the debates regarding her twitter sharing was "absurd" and that "it did not reflect her views." While Grow's remarks on Twitter were welcomed by many Turkish social media users, many were still questioning why the US embassy official had not removed the controversial tweet. In that perspective, Grow told Daily Sabah on late Thursday that she did not delete the tweet "because I have learned that many people find a way to negative angle to whatever you do. If I delete the tweet I look like I am hiding something and if I don't delete it I look like I don't see why it is problematic."
Though the furious reaction from Turkish social media users are expected to end with Grow's explanatory tweet on claiming to "accidentally" retweeting a tweet affiliated to the fugitive Gülenist's tweet, one of the users said "why be surprised for her using their children [FETÖ] as their reference" while another provided screenshots of her tweets and described it as a "scandal."
Despite the strategic relations, Turkish and US relations have been on the edge especially following the failed coup attempt on the night of July 15 by the FETÖ members where an official request was sent to the US for the provisional arrest and extradition of US-based terror leader Fetullah Gülen by the Turkish Justice Ministry. Though, there is strong intelligence on the US-based terror leader Gülen's possible escape to another country, the US has been showing negligence on his extradition process however last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden finally admitted that Ankara provided "concrete evidence" as Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ is to travel to the US at the end of Oct in efforts to expedite the process.
