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We have no hand in Turkey coup plot – UBA

Ilicak is now being taken to Istanbul where she will later appear in court to learn if she will be remanded in custody.

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Since the failed coup, Turkey has jailed more than 10,000 people and suspended more than 50,000 judges, civil servants, and educators under a state of emergency in which expressing ideas similar to those of Gulen is considered a crime.

Turkey on Monday issued warrants for the detention of 42 journalists suspected of links to the alleged organizers of a failed military uprising, intensifying concerns that a sweeping crackdown on alleged coup plotters could target media for any news coverage critical of the government. There could be new apprehensions, arrests and detentions.

Two senior foreign ministry diplomats – Gurcan Balik and Tuncay Babali – have been also removed from their posts, a Turkish official said.

Gulen, 75, denies involvement in the abortive coup, in which at least 246 people were killed.

He also said that Turkey is determined to have Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-exile in the United States, and whom Ankara believes was the mastermind behind the coup, extradited.

Mehmet Simsek, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, said his visit and that of other officials was part of an ongoing attempt to try to mend ties with Moscow.

Thousands of Erdogan supporters continue to fill city squares across Turkey every night with the president telling them to stay until further notice in a “vigil” for democracy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan next month for the first time in nearly a year, a sign that a rapprochement between the two nations is gathering pace.

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Russian trade sanctions imposed on Ankara over the Turkish shooting down of a Russian jet near the Syrian border last November remain in place, and Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said on Tuesday they were unlikely to be lifted before the two leaders met.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the Kremlin in Moscow Russia