Zaman, which had been Turkey’s largest daily, was believed to be tied to Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Control over military academies will pass from the army to the Ministry of Defense.
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday expressed deep concern about the ongoing wave of arrests in Turkey following the putsch.
Turkish officials have complained of what they perceive as a lack of support from the EU over the coup, while European leaders have urged Ankara to show restraint and a sense of proportion in bringing those responsible to justice.
Tens of thousands of other state employees with suspected links to Gulen have been suspended from their jobs in sectors including education, health care, city government and even Turkish Airlines.
Simsek, respected by Western investors as a safe pair of hands in guiding the Turkish economy, also said he saw no reason to downgrade Turkey’s credit rating following the coup. Turkey’s opposition parties have condemned the coup but are also warning against further repression.
“The investigation is continuing, there are people who are being searched for. There could be new apprehensions, arrests and detentions”, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told Sky News, according to the network’s translation of his remarks.
“The process is not completed yet”, he added.
The Turkish government is also set to issue another decree to close down military high schools and restructure war academies in the wake of the failed coup attempt.
It did not give the names of those media outlets to be closed but according to a list obtained by the CNN-Turk channel they include mainly provincial titles but also some well-known national media.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has alleged that Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric based in the USA, was behind the abortive uprising by a faction within the military that led to some 290 deaths.
Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possibly death on the night of the coup, denies the crackdown has wider aims and says the Gulen movement threatened democracy by attempting to build a “parallel state” within the military, media and civil service.
A total of 8,651 soldiers took part in the failed coup attempt and 1,214 of these soldiers were “military students”, according to the Turkish military.
Albayrak did not elaborate, but his comments were an apparent reference to criticism from European officials to the government clampdown that has followed the coup attempt, and perceived reluctance in the United States to extradite Gulen.
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A large-scale shake-up of the Turkish armed forces is expected to be announced when the country’s Supreme Military Council meets on Thursday.
