The July 15 rebellion, which saw plotters bomb Ankara from war planes and wreak havoc with tanks on the streets of Istanbul in a bid to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has sparked a backlash affecting all aspects of Turkish life.
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The developments come as top military commanders were to meet later in the day to decide on one of the most radical shake-ups in the history of the country’s armed forces.
Turkish honour guards stand at attention as Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim (not pictured) attends a wreath-laying ceremony at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ahead of a High Military Council meeting in Ankara July 28, 2016.
The military has insisted that only a tiny proportion of the total armed forces – which number around three quarters of a million, the second-largest in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation after the United States – participated. The Supreme Military Council, gathering top comman…
On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country.
The number includes 149 generals and admirals, amounting to almost half of the high-ranking officers in the entire Turkish military, the Reuters reported. Two generals resigned as the meeting convened.
Even before the failed coup, Turkey was struggling with major security challenges including attacks by Kurdish militants and Islamic State, a grim reality underscored by tourism data on Thursday showing a 40 percent fall in foreign visitors in June.
Tens of thousands of state employees have also been dismissed for alleged ties to Gulen, while schools, dormitories and hospitals associated with his movement have been closed down. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced Thursday that 88 employees of his ministry were dismissed, including two ambassadors.
The chief prosecutor’s office in Ankara called Thursday for the seizure of assets held by approximately 3,000 detained judges and prosecutors, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Authorities issued warrants for the detention of 89 journalists as the clampdown extended to the media.
Also to be shut are the Zaman newspaper and its Today’s Zaman English language sister publication which, like Cihan, were part of a holding linked to Gulen until being put into state administration earlier this year.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the USA for years, denies any involvement in the coup, in which at least 246 people, excluding the plotters, were killed.
Turkey says the radical measures are needed to eradicate what Erdogan describes as the “virus” of Gulen’s influence across all Turkish institutions.
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Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag repeated Ankara’s request to the United States to swiftly extradite Gulen, once a powerful ally of Erdogan.
