The country’s justice minister said that as many as 6,000 people had been detained by Monday.
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Supporters of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan have held protests outside the Pennsylvania home of exiled cleric Fetullah Gulen, accused of being behind Friday’s coup attempt in Turkey.
The coup attempt began late Friday with tanks rolling into the streets of the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul as Erdogan was on vacation.
A total of 104 coup plotters were also killed, the military has said.
But Erdogan promised a purge of the armed forces even before the coup attempt was over. But he successfully mobilised supporters into the streets to face down the plotters.
“We shall rapidly conduct the cleansing operation so that they can not again show the audacity of coming against the will of the people”.
This disturbing picture shows dozens of Turkish soldiers bound together after being stripped of their uniforms following their arrest.
Those arrested on Saturday were reported to include Gen Erdal Ozturk, commander of the Third Army; Gen Adem Huduti, commander of the Second Army; and Akin Ozturk, the former Chief of Air Staff.
As many as 3,000 soldiers – including senior commanders in the Turkish armed forces – have been seized by authorities in response to the unrest, which killed at least 265 people and rattled the stability of a key Middle Eastern nation and important USA ally.
Turkish authorities have detained a senior air force general and a dozen other suspects accused of backing the failed coup, at a key air base used by United States forces for raids in Syria, an official said Sunday.
He said Turkey would resume operations with the US-led coalition once the anti-coup operations were completed.
Media captionWhy did the coup in Turkey fail?
A Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkey “has been preparing a formal application with detailed information about Gulen’s involvement in illegal activities”. Gulen denies the charges.
“After this coup attempt, once again I call on him (Barack Obama).
Let’s be honest about this”, Jean-Marc Ayrault told France 3 television. We will not leave the squares. but we will continue defiantly. Dominique Soguel, Emrah Gurel, Bram Janssen and Cinar Kiper in Istanbul and Mucahit Ceylan in Ankara also contributed. Rebel troops also moved to block the two bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.
Bozdag repeated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call for the U.S.to extradite Gulen. We want the death penalty!”, Mr Yildrim told protestors: “We got your message.
Those air operations were blocked, at least temporarily, by the Turkish government following the coup, but the USA secretary of state John Kerry said operations had not been disrupted.
Turkey accuses Mr. Gulen of leading a group called the “Fethullahci Terror Organisation (FETO)” that has created a parallel state.
At a rally late on Saturday, his supporters demanded that the coup leaders be executed.
“We need to see genuine evidence that withstands the standard of scrutiny that exists in many countries’ system of law with respect to the issue of extradition and if it meets that standard, there is nothing, there is no interest we have in standing in the way of appropriately honoring the treaty that we have with Turkey with respect to extradition”, Kerry said.
The suspects are still in Greece, but the chopper itself is now been flown back to Turkey, a Turkish official said.
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The coup attempt also delayed consideration of a Canadian bid for global recognition for a huge area of boreal forest in limbo.
