Since the defeat of Friday’s failed coup, Turkey’s foreign minister has carried out intensive telephone diplomacy with dozens of top diplomats from around the world, including his counterparts, as well as leaders from powerful worldwide blocs and organizations. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulation. The access to specific websites was blocked at least seven times past year, according to Turkey Blocks, an activist group that maps censorship in Turkey.
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Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Muslim cleric whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of plotting the attempted coup against him on Friday, says it’s possible Erdogan actually plotted the coup himself as an excuse for payback against his political enemies.
It also shattered fragile confidence among Turkey’s allies about security in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country, which is a leading member of the US -led coalition against Islamic State.
Clashes and explosions across the country’s capital, Ankara, and its largest city, Istanbul, left nearly 200 dead in the coup attempt, including several dozen plotters, before the government regained control on Saturday and arrested more than 2,800 military personnel.
The EU faces a particularly tricky time with Turkey in the next three months as it tries to finalise a deal struck in March to reward Ankara for preventing migrants from crossing to Greece by channeling up to 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in aid to the 2.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, reviving EU accession talks and scrapping visas for Turks wishing to visit Europe.
“Once these operations are completed, we will continue our fight against Daesh (Islamic State) with either coalition nations, or within the NATO framework, and resume our cooperation with NATO”, Cavusoglu said. “In the short term, this failed coup plot will strengthen President Erdogan”.
But the coup attempt crumbled as Erdogan rushed back to Istanbul from a Mediterranean holiday and urged people to take to the streets to support his government against plotters he accused of trying to kill him. They include senior army commanders, top judges, prosecutors and a military aide to Erdogan.
“We are here for democracy, so the country lasts”, retired soldier Nusret Tuzak said in Ankara.
Still, the government crackdowns raised concerns over the future of democracy in Turkey, which has long prided itself on its democratic and secular traditions despite being in a region swept by conflict and extremism.
Still, the attempted coup risks fueling more instability in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member that’s already entangled in the war in neighboring Syria as well as a conflict with Kurdish separatists at home. They published photos of people protesting the coup, risking their lives by facing the coup soldiers’ tanks, helicopters and guns and branded it: “Images from the ground in #Turkey show people celebrating #TurkeyCoup”.
The State Department said travel restrictions have been imposed on USA government personnel in southeastern Turkey.
Witnesses described hours of chaos in Turkey overnight, including explosions, gunfire and low-flying jets.
Gen. Umit Dundar, newly appointed as acting chief of the general staff, said the plotters were mainly officers from the Air Force, the military police and the armored units.
Close co-operation will be maintained with the Turkish government, while efforts to assist Britons stranded overseas will become a main focus, the committee said. It quickly became clear, however, that the military was not united in the effort to overthrow the government. Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party government, which came to power in 2002, made it a priority to curb the military’s political influence, and thousands of officers were jailed in earlier purges.
Yildirim told reporters Saturday that Gulen was the “leader of a terrorist organization” and that any country “standing by this person will not be a friend of Turkey”. He has shaken up the government, cracked down on dissidents, restricted the news media and renewed fighting with Kurdish rebels.
When the Fethullah Gulen movement, Erdogan’s allies against the army, turned against him in 2013, he again alleged a coup attempt.
Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in Istanbul later on Saturday that the U.S. must agree to extradite Gulen to its fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member.
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Plotters have been subject to similar actions in Konya, Van and at Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul, the Foreign Office has said.
