Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday he is preoccupied with the state of Turkey’s democracy, and that has been communicated to the government.
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“Our aim is to keep the state of emergency as short as possible”, Numan Kurtulmus told reporters in Ankara on Thursday.
Turkey has arrested at least 70 generals and admirals following the coup attempt as well as 21,000 teachers and deans of universities.
Mr Erdogan, who had been accused of autocratic conduct even before this week’s tough crackdown, said the state of emergency would counter threats to Turkish democracy. “We aim to take steps, do what we should do, and lift the state of emergency before the time runs out”, Bozdag said.
President Obama spoke by telephone Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Erdogan, reiterating USA commitment to the democratically elected government of Turkey, but also urging those arrested in the wake of the coup attempt be afforded their rights of due process under the Turkish Constitution, Earnest said.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim confirmed on Tuesday that an official request has been sent to the USA government for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who was accused by Ankara of plotting a failed military coup. “Gulen’s powerbase was always the police force; the military was more the domain of secular Kemalists”, wrote Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in a post for AEIdeas Tuesday.
The moves also amplified worldwide concern President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was using the coup plot as a pretext to crack down on opponents. Some 8,000 police officers, including in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, have been removed on suspicion of links to the plot.
Turkish followers of Gulen are said to have created math and science charter schools around the world, including 160 that are publicly funded in the US.
Indeed, some observers believe that it is far more convenient for Erdogan to let Gulen stay on as the boogeyman in Pennsylvania whom he can blame for Turkey’s continuing problems. The death tolls given by officials range from 230 to more than 300.
“This parallel terrorist organisation will no longer be an effective pawn for any country”, prime minister Binali Yildirim told parliament. For the West, the stakes are high because strategically located Turkey, spanning Asia and Europe, is considered a vital partner in efforts to contain terrorism and regulate mass migration from Syria and other conflict zones.
Since the coup was put down, Erdogan has said enemies of the state still threatened the nation and has urged Turks to take to the streets every night until Friday to show support for the government.
Later, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Turkey had submitted materials related to Gulen and the administration was reviewing whether they amounted to a formal extradition request. Necati Alkan, a resident of Istanbul’s Fatih neighborhood, said: “From now on, we will spread justice in Turkey just like the Ottoman empire did for 600 years”. “It appears that Erdogan will use the failed coup of 2016 for much the same aims, with much the same result”, Eissenstat wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
The bloodshed shocked the nation of nearly 80 million, where the army last used force to stage a successful coup more than 30 years ago.
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The lira fell to a record low after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Turkey’s foreign currency credit rating, citing the fragmentation of the political landscape and saying it expected a period of heightened unpredictability.
