By Sunday some 6,000 people including top army commanders, judges and prosecutors had been detained as Erdogan vows to stamp out the “virus” of the putschists.
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Gulen moved to the United States in 1999, before he was charged with treason in Turkey.
Broadcaster NTV cited Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag as saying more arrests were expected.
Officials accused the judges and the coup plotters of being loyal to moderate cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan has often accused of attempting to overthrow the government.
Also, some 2,839 soldiers – including the head of the Third Army Corps in Istanbul, General Erdal Ozturk – have been arrested.
Other high-ranking military officials flew to neighboring Greece by helicopter and requested political asylum.
He also said he did not rule out bringing back the death penalty for the coup’s perpetrators. “I think our government will speak with the opposition and come to a decision”, he said, reacting to crowds in Istanbul calling for capital punishment.
Meanwhile, thousands of people attended funerals Sunday in Istanbul and Ankara for those killed. Prayers were read simultaneously from Turkey’s 85,000 mosques at noon to honor those who died.
At least 265 people were killed and more than 1,400 were wounded during the failed coup, the AP reported.
Turkish media reported intense clashes at a large military barracks outside Ankara that was believed to be a stronghold of the coup plotters.
Earlier Erdogan urged the U.S. to extradite Gulen claiming Turkey never turned down an extradition request from Washington for “terrorists”.
He made the allegation against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after Erdogan fingered him as the mastermind behind the attempted military overthrow of Edrogan’s regime.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Turkish President Erdogan on Sunday.
It said the two leaders – who recently patched up relations following Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane – also agreed to meet face to face next month.
Erdogan said Turkey could consider reinstating the death penalty following the putsch bid, despite concerns in the global community.
He promised that those involved in the failed coup would “pay the price”.
The US-based cleric that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says is behind an attempted military coup in Turkey has denied any involvement, suggesting that the coup could have been staged by the president himself.
“We have urged them not to reach out so far that they are creating doubts about their commitment to the democratic process”, US Secretary of State John Kerry said during a Sunday morning news program broadcast in America.
Erdogan remains a divisive figure in Turkey. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately’.
The entire investigation is being led by Ankara prosecutors and those arrested are suspected of belonging to Gulen’s group, which Turkey dubs the “Fethullahci Terror Organisation (Feto)”.
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Gulen is understood to maintain significant support among some members of the military and mid-level bureaucrats.
