Reuters reported earlier that Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge were both closed on Friday, local television channels reported, without giving a reason.
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According to Yildirim, Turkey’s Constitution Council to consider introduction of death sentence after coup attempt.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview over FaceTime with the CNN Turk station, dismissed the military action as “an attempt at an uprising by a minority within our armed forces”.
The chaos capped a period of political turmoil in Turkey – a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and key Western ally in the fight against Isis – that critics blame on President Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
“The first thing to say is obviously we want to urge calm, the avoidance of any further bloodshed, and it’s crucial that we support the democratic institutions of Turkey and that’s a message that was very much echoed of course by the Turkish foreign minister, my counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, to whom I spoke a couple of hours ago, and he was very grateful for United Kingdom support at the UN and elsewhere”, he said. More than 2,800 people have been detained. “In any case, they may say they are fighting for democracy, but they are using very undemocratic means to do so”, the president said.
“They will receive every punishment they deserve”, the prime minister said, noting the perpetrators were now in the hands of the justice system.
Rebel soldiers who had taken control of military aircraft were still firing from the air and fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept them, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, underscoring the ongoing uncertainty.
Earlier, military jets were heard flying over the capital, Ankara.
Umit Dundar- who was made acting Chief of Staff after coup-makers reportedly took his predecessor hostage- said the air force command, the gendarmerie command and armored forces units were behind the coup, Hurriyet reports. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged all sides to support Turkey’s democratically elected government and Obama held a meeting with his national security advisers.
A source in Ankara has told Breitbart London that a huge explosion engulfed the old Presidential Palace in smoke around 22:30 BST, which is only now beginning to clear.
About 200 unarmed soldiers had left Turkey’s military headquarters in Ankara and surrendered to police, the state-run Anadolu news agency says.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief Jens Stoltenberg hailed the “strong support shown by the people and all political parties to democracy and to the democratically elected government of Turkey”, a key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally.
“But we must remember that Erdogan’s own history is one of abusing power by reversing election results, cracking down on the country’s once-free press, and scapegoating his most credible opponents with outlandish lies”, Rohrabacher said.
The Dogan news agency reported that soldiers fired on a group of people trying to cross the Bosporus bridge to protest against the attempted coup, and that some people had been hurt.
There have always been tensions between the military – which saw itself as the protector of the secular Turkish state – and Erdogan’s Islamic-influenced AKP party.
An attempted military coup in Turkey to overthrow its president and government appears to have failed.
The coup attempted appeared to crumble as fast as it began.
The Turkish president blamed the coup plot on followers of US -based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, a one-time ally-turned nemesis. The president, whom 52 percent of the people brought to power, is in charge.
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Yildirim told private NTV television: “it is correct that there was an attempt”, when asked if there was a coup.
