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Turkey Suspending Human Rights Convention

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Turkey must provide evidence of Gulen’s involvement in the failed coup attempt.

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Turkey experienced a national state of emergency in the immediate years after martial law was declared in 1980 following a coup.

Erdogan said Tuesday “an important decision” will be announced after the meetings.

The coup leaders said they were acting in the name of democracy and that they wanted to “reinstate constitutional order, human rights and freedom” in Turkey.

In the latest in a series of dramatic clampdowns following Turkey’s failed coup on Friday, academics have been temporarily banned from leaving the country.

As of Wednesday, more than 70,000 people had been charged, arrested, suspended, fired or been put under investigation.

Turkey extended the clear-out to the education sector because it says it wants to root out supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who it accuses of organising the attempted putsch.

Officials on Wednesday raised the death toll from the violence surrounding the coup attempt to 240 government supporters. According to a list leaked to the website, Middle East Eye, plotters had already assigned military officers to overseeing key government functions following the coup.

The failed coup also strengthens Turkey’s position with large worldwide players, reaffirming its status as the stable North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bulwark in the east.

Officials have blamed the unrest on the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and the “parallel structure” he has formed to topple the government, the BBC added.

He chaired a meeting of the National Security Council for almost five hours on Wednesday.

In the aftermath of the coup, many Western analysts believe that the Erdogan administration will now be able to tighten its grip within the Turkish civil service, purging domestic opposition and dissent of any nature, whether tied to the coup or not.

There are also fears that key institutions within Turkey are in crisis.

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In a sign of how shaken Turkey’s leadership has been by the coup attempt, with dozens of generals arrested as well as Erdogan’s aide de camp, government ministers and top officials have not been briefed in advance of the meetings.

Fethullah Gulen is a former political ally of the Turkish president who is accused of swaying members of the military to carry out the coup attempt from his Poconos compound