Aug 04 2021 11:22 Gmt+3 Last Updated On: Aug 04 2021 11:29 Gmt+3 Hilal Kaplan, a Turkish journalist appointed last month to the board of state-run broadcaster TRT, warned that fires ravaging the forests of southern Turkey over the past week could be used as a pretext for a military coup attempt. Kaplan made the prediction in a column for the Sabah newspaper on Wednesday. She said she was prompted to write it after Steven Cook, a senior fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), highlighted perceived weaknesses in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in an article three days before the wildfires erupted. An English version of her column follows below: