I intended to write about the curious developments in Pakistan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's removal from power, but our readers seemed more interested in a follow-up piece on my last column. Having received several messages from Daily Sabah readers who urged me to ask the U.S. Embassy in Ankara some of last week's questions once again, I felt compelled to provide some more details about contacts between the coup plotters and U.S. diplomats.

Here is a recap of what happened: In January 2014, the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) – the terrorist group led by U.S.-based fugitive Fetullah Gülen – used its operatives in the bureaucracy to launch an attack against Turkish intelligence, as tens of FETÖ-affiliated soldiers raided a truck owned by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) to portray its cargo, which was going to be delivered to the Turkmen community in Syria, as an arms shipment to terrorist groups. In the aftermath of last summer's coup attempt, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office uncovered new evidence regarding the incident and prepared its fourth indictment about the conspiracy.

As part of the investigation, authorities discovered that two suspects, who have since been identified as civilian imams of FETÖ, had contacted the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul right after the raid. On July 5, the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office sent a written request to the U.S. Embassy to inquire about the nature of their phone calls with the two individuals. Although U.S. diplomats pledged to cooperate with the authorities as soon as possible, there has been no movement over the past 25 days. For some reason, the U.S. Embassy continues to keep silent about its communications with FETÖ operatives.

To be clear, it is unlikely that the U.S. Embassy's refusal to cooperate with the authorities is related to Ambassador John Bass's potential move to Afghanistan. After all, rumors about the U.S. ambassador's appointment to Kabul would not stop the embassy from looking into the communications between their staff and FETÖ operatives.

Needless to say, the prosecution's request is quite simple because the authorities already identified the phone numbers dialed by the two civilian imams to contact U.S. diplomatic missions on January 20, 2014. The embassy's unusual silence suggests that the individuals in question were not trying to inquire about their visa applications. Had this been the case, the U.S. Embassy would have promptly informed the prosecution that the phone calls were related to the FETÖ operatives' visas as it did when asked about their phone call to Adil Öksüz, one of the July 15 coup attempt's civilian leaders.

Provided that the phone calls were not about tourist visas, it is safe to conclude that the two FETÖ operatives were reaching out to U.S. diplomats in Ankara and Istanbul. Likewise, one must assume that the U.S. Embassy knows who among their staff had been assigned the extensions in question at the time. Under the circumstances, all it would take the U.S. Embassy to answer the prosecution's questions is to have a chat with the diplomats in question to inquire about the nature of these phone calls.

For the embassy's sake, let us assume that the diplomats in question told the U.S. ambassador's office that they had no recollection of the phone calls. As employees of a serious government that goes to great lengths to store and archive information, there is no doubt that the U.S. diplomats kept records of their phone calls with known FETÖ operatives – if the calls were not intercepted and recorded by the embassy itself in the first place. The solution, then, is simple: All the U.S. Embassy has to do is spend a few hours in the basement going through their archives and discover what was discussed during these phone calls.

You might be wondering why the Turkish government finds these phone calls so important. Gülen, who orchestrated the July 15 coup attempt, currently lives in the United States, and the U.S. government has been stalling Ankara's extradition request, citing the judicial process. We would like to think that the U.S. government had no direct contact with FETÖ or enlisted the services of that organization to target Turkish interests. Nor do Turkish officials want to believe that Washington supported last summer's coup attempt. The phone records, however, suggest that the Turkish authorities might need to think again about the nature of FETÖ's relationship with the United States. At this point, the phone calls between the FETÖ operatives who raided the MİT trucks and U.S. diplomats indicate that the U.S. Embassy was not only had direct links to the perpetrators, but also followed the raid closely and possibly intervened in them.

The questions that the U.S. Embassy must answer are quite simple: Was the United States government, which has been providing safe haven to Gülen and working closely with FETÖ's so-called imams, complicit in last summer's thwarted coup in Turkey? Is that why the U.S. Embassy has kept silent and not responded to the prosecutor's written request?