Dozens of others are still being questioned, while thousands suspected of involvement in the coup attempt are said to have been rounded up and as many as 20,000 state employees removed from their posts.
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Teachers, journalists, police and judges alike have been caught in a net authorities are casting wider by the day, in what is increasingly looking like a witch-hunt to suppress dissent.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the issue in a phone call with U.S. President Barack Obama, and his spokesman said the government was preparing a formal extradition request for the cleric, Fethullah Gulen.
His spokesman yesterday hit out at suggestions from Fethullah Gulen, the imam based in the USA who is blamed by Mr Erdogan for orchestrating the uprising, that the president organised it to strengthen his position. NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg joined the call for Turkey’s leaders to respect the rule of law. It has also detained 9,000 military personnel, including more than 100 generals. The purge is rumored to continue in the Ministry of Interior.
Turkey has already announced the firing of 15,200 teachers at state institutions, demanded the resignations of 1,577 university deans and halted all foreign assignments for state-employed academics.
“It was certainly an expression of concern about this group and its presence in Canada, and an invitation for us to work with them on that”.
There was no immediate statement Wednesday from Turkey’s Telecommunications Board, a government agency that regulates access to websites.
The extradition demand is likely to strain U.S.-Turkey ties as the Obama administration refers the matter to the Justice Department, which will determine whether the Turkish government has established probable cause that a crime was committed.
The United States and Russian Federation criticized the United Nations for exceeding its scope in its first biannual report on the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement; U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said that documenting Iranian complaints about poor economic recovery after the lifting of sanctions was beyond the U.N. reporting mandate.
Gulen has strongly denied the government’s charges, suggesting the attempted military coup in Turkey could have been staged as a pretext for the Erdogan government to seize even more power. Earnest added that a decision on whether to extradite would be made under a longstanding treaty between the two countries.
“We will dig them up by their roots so that no clandestine terrorist organisation will have the nerve to betray our blessed people again”. Gulen has denied any knowledge of the failed coup.
“It is ridiculous, irresponsible and false to suggest I had anything to do with the horrific failed coup”, he reiterated in the statement. “I urge the US government to reject any effort to abuse the extradition process to carry out political vendettas”, he said. His movement, called Hizmet, which means “service”, includes think-tanks, various media enterprises and schools in many countries, including charter schools in the United States.
Turkey’s National Security Council is holding an emergency meeting following a coup attempt last week that was derailed by security forces and protesters loyal to the government.
The soldiers involved in the President’s apprehension were informed of the details of the coup as they were being airlifted to a hotel in a resort town where Erdogan and his family were vacationing during Friday’s deadly attempted takeover.
It is unclear how many soldiers participated in the attack, during which two of Erdogan’s bodyguards were killed, and it is unclear how loyal the troops were, given that they were briefed on the coup so late in proceedings.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Air Force adviser, Lt Col Erkan Kivrak, was detained at a hotel while he was on holiday in Turkey’s southern province of Antalya.
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Several senior figures in the military are facing court in Ankara, military officials have said.
