According to reports published by Reuters, “Turkish forces loyal to President Tayyip Erdogan largely crushed an attempted military coup on Saturday after crowds answered his call to take to the streets in support of the government and dozens of rebels abandoned their tanks”.
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At least 3,000 soldiers have been arrested and some 2,700 judges sacked since the coup came to an end.
“We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr. Gulen”, Kerry said, adding that the USA would act only if Turkey could prove wrongdoing on Gulen’s part.
Disciplinary actions extended to the judicial system Saturday as an oversight body, the High Council of Judges and Prosectors, announced that 2,745 judges had been dismissed, the Anadolu Agency reported.
Mr Bozdag said he was confident that the United States would return Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkey.
United States officials say they’ve not received any request for Gulen’s extradition from the Turkish government.
“The situation is completely under control”, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said outside his Ankara office. A Turkish minister was also quoted as saying that the USA was behind the coup.
While Erdogan has many supporters in rural Turkey, his attempts to “suppress and oppress” have caused some in cities like Istanbul and Ankara to oppose him, Harrington said.
“Government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force”, he said. The Pentagon said it was trying to get permission to resume air operations from the base, while adjusting mission operations in the meantime.
‘It appears that they have no tolerance for any movement, any group, any organisation that is not under their total control, ‘ he said.
Power was also cut to the base, where tactical nuclear weapons are stocked, and the United States forces there had to use internal power sources.
The Turkish leader’s audience chanted, demanding “the execution of Fethullah”.
During the coup, Obama threw his support behind Turkey’s “democratically elected government” and urged all parties to “avoid any violence or bloodshed”.
In a statement, however, Gulen insisted that he condemned, “in the strongest terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey”.
Erdogan’s AK Party has long had strained relations with the military, which has a history of mounting coups to defend secularism although it has not seized power directly since 1980.
In a statement, European Union diplomacy chief Federica Mogherini and neighbourhood commissioner Johannes Hahn also expressed their “full support to the democratic institutions of the country”.
From the beginning Mr Erdogan’s government has been deeply involved in the war in Syria, backing Islamist opposition to President Assad.
Referring to pro-coup banners displayed in several cities of Pakistan, he said those who put banners for inviting military to takeover were being arrested.
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Fighter jets buzzed overhead, gunfire erupted outside military headquarters and vehicles blocked two major bridges in Istanbul.
