Television footage showed yesterday (1 December) a furious Erdoğan, who said the diplomats who "slandered" him should be punished.
As a second batch of secret US cables was published by Wikileaks, Turkey apparently abandoned its earlier strategy of downplaying the damage done.
The particular cable which infuriated the Turkish Prime Minister is dated 30 December 2004 and signed by then-US Ambassador Eric Edelman, who was assessing Erdoğan's second year in power.
The cable reads: "We have heard from two contacts that Erdoğan has eight accounts in Swiss banks; his explanations that his wealth comes from the wedding presents guests gave his son and that a Turkish businessman is paying the educational expenses of all four Erdoğan children in the US purely altruistically are lame."
Erdoğan, who faced the Turkish press at an inauguration ceremony in Ankara, said that those who had slandered him would be "crushed" and "finished" and would "disappear," according to media reports.
The prime minister also lashed out at the main Turkish opposition party, the socialist CHP, saying they had been riding on the allegations and were in fact slanderers themselves.
One of the arguments put forward by Erdoğan might not be necessarily interpreted in his favour, in that he recalled earlier allegations that he had a billion dollars in the bank during his time as mayor of Istanbul.
"The person who slandered me then is currently in jail as a suspect in the Ergenekon investigation," the prime minister said, quoted by the daily Zaman.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek said that the WikiLeaks documents were released with the purpose of creating tension between nations and politicians.
As the Wikileaks revelations continue, further reactions are to be expected, especially in Turkey, which is the second country after Iraq by number of cables disclosed. One of them, dated 27 February 2009, claims that Erdoğan's friends were benefiting from Turkey's business deals with Iran.
