Russia reportedly warned Turkey about looming military coup

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly received a warning from Russia about an imminent military coup hours before it launched, Iranian Fars News Agency (FNA) said on Wednesday, July 19.

The news agency cited several Arab media outlets quoting diplomats from Ankara who said that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization "received intel from its Russian counterpart that warned of an impending coup."

The warning was based on data that Russian military in the region received intercepting "highly sensitive army exchanges and encoded radio messages showing that the Turkish army was readying to stage a coup," it went on to says, according to TASS.

In particular, they reportedly discussed plans to dispatch several army helicopters to the hotel (in Marmaris) where Erdogan stayed to arrest or kill him, it said.

"The diplomats were not sure of the Russian station that had intercepted the exchanges, but said the Russian army intelligence unit deployed in Khmeimim (also called Hmeimim) in Syria's Northern province of Latakia is reportedly equipped with state-of-the-art electronic and spying systems to gather highly sensitive information," Fars said.