Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: World Economic Forum.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed Tuesday that Israel was behind the recent Egyptian military coup that removed Islamist President Morsi from power, Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported.

“Israel is behind the coup in Egypt, we have evidence,” Erdogan told members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Tuesday, citing an unnamed “French intellectual.”

“Erdoğan stressed the Jewish identity of the French intellectual,” Today’s Zaman said. Erdogan cited his source as saying in 2011 that “the Muslim Brotherhood won’t be in power even if they are elected because ‘democracy is not the ballot box,'” the paper reported.

The Turkish Prime Minister whom President Obama once described as being among his top five international friends, has strongly backed Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in its fight against the country’s secularist military.

Previously Erdogan ally Ankara Mayor İbrahim Melih Gökçek, a member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party recently claimed that protests taking place in Turkey were part of an effort by the American “Jewish lobby” to undermine Turkey’s government.

Erdogan himself directed accusations over the local riots “at business men and large-scale investors Erdogan has been terming ‘the interests lobby,'” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported.