People protesting against the coup, wave a Turkish flag on top of the monument in Taksim square, Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, July 16, 2016.
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Thousands of people soon flooded the streets in Turkish cities.
Erdoğan, who returned to Istanbul in the early hours of the morning from his holiday in the resort of Marmaris, said the attempted coup was “treason” undertaken by “a minority within our armed forces”. “Some people illegally undertook an illegal action outside of the chain of command”, Yildirim said in comments broadcast by private channel NTV.
Yildirim said the putsch bid had fallen apart as almost 3 000 soldiers suspected in involvement were detained.
This time, authorities blamed not ardent secularists but a religious figure – Fethullah Gulen, a critic of Erdogan in self-imposed exile in the United States.
Addressing large crowds after landing at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, Erdogan said of the plotters: “They have pointed the people’s guns against the people”.
Zarif said in a tweet he was “deeply concerned about the crisis in Turkey”.
“They bombed places I had departed right after I was gone”, he said. “They probably thought we were still there”.
However, sources in Turkey have indicated that Erdogan had become increasingly paranoid about the possibility of a coup in recent months and had drawn up detailed plans for his escape from the country in such an eventuality. “The government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force”.
In a night that sometimes verged on the weird, Erdogan frequently took to social media even though he is an avowed enemy of the technology when his opponents use it, frequently targeting Twitter and Facebook.
But if such coded language might be confusing for people outside of Turkey, it was not lost on a 75-year-old Turkish religious leader who lives in the US state of Pennsylvania. However, by dawn the noise of fighting had died down considerably.
However, Turks in Turkey weren’t the only ones who did what Erdogan told them.
Turkey’s four main political parties released a joint declaration during an extraordinary parliamentary meeting later Saturday, denouncing the coup attempt and claiming that any moves against the people or parliament will be met with the “with the iron will of the Turkish Grand National Assembly resisting them”.
The attempted coup, which now appears to be over, began on Friday evening when tanks took up positions on two bridges over the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, blocking traffic.
Erdogan flew home early Saturday and declared the coup a failure. Smoke rose up from nearby, Reuters witnesses said.
The US military has around 2,200 service members and civilian employees in Turkey, which is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and a crucial regional partner for Washington. Airborne shelling at several locations included the ruling AK Party headquarters, the presidential complex and the General Staff, Anadolu News Agency said.
“I certainly believe that coup plotters will not succeed”, he said, speaking on a mobile phone via FaceTime.
There was chaos in Istanbul as angry crowds took to the streets to boo the passing tanks, while others celebrated. “We will not abandon our country to these invaders”.
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Turkey’s president has accused a US-based Muslim preacher of being behind the attempted military coup against his government.
