Turkey says Gulen used his network of followers in the military to attempt to overthrow the government on July 15-16.
Advertisement
That’s not sitting well with US officials, and US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper accused the purge of doing serious harm to bilateral military cooperation, particularly as it relates to the ongoing US war against ISIS.
He says military operations out of the air base at Incirlik are back to normal.
Turkey is also host to a CIA base from which the agency has been supporting moderate Syrian rebel forces, USA listening posts, and an early warning radar for NATO’s European missile defense system.
A “state of emergency” was declared in the country following the failed coup attempt, in which more than 250 people were killed and almost 1,500 wounded, “in order to prevent a probable second terrorist coup attempt, and to ensure public safety, to protect democracy and maintain stability”.
Speaking to anti-coup protesters in the central Turkish province of Sivas on Sunday, National Education Minister İsmet Yılmaz said: “We will operate these [public] schools which are owned by the state, the licenses of teachers who work there have been suspended, we will carry on education [services] with newcomers”.
“Some of the officers that we have our relationships with in Turkey are now either detained, in some cases retired as a result of the coup”, Scaparrotti said.
Lingering “friction” in Turkey is already impacting some of the coalition’s current operations, Votel said.
Advertisement
“We’ve got ways to mitigate that, to manage that right now”, he said. Putin’s government has repeatedly rejected those allegations. “The Russians have, are now and will continue to employ methods and approaches and techniques below direct military confrontation to fulfill that vision of being a great power on a co-equal basis with us”.
