Turkey’s president slammed the United States on Friday, claiming it was not standing firmly against a failed military coup and accused it of harboring the plot’s alleged mastermind, as a government crackdown in the coup’s aftermath strained Turkey’s ties with key allies.
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Turkish authorities have issued warrants for the detention of 89 journalists.
“When tens of thousands of civil servants, teachers and judges are dismissed, thousands of schools and education facilities shut and dozens of journalists arrested without any direct connection with the coup being discernible, we can not simply stay silent”, Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as saying Friday in the Ruhr Nachrichten paper.
The cleric denies the charges and Erdogan’s critics say the president is using the purges to clamp down on dissent. Dozens of media organizations – a lot of them also linked to Gulen – were ordered shuttered late Wednesday. “If they are guilty, they will increase”, said Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death on the night of the coup. Turkey wants the cleric extradited but the USA has told Turkey to present evidence against Gulen and let the US extradition process take its course.
It’s part of a broad crackdown by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government on those suspected of ties to a USA -based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who the government says was behind the attempted coup.
“Some judges and prosecutors with ties to the Gulen movement have fled to Germany”.
Bozdag said Turkey was receiving intelligence that Gulen might flee, possibly to Australia, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, or Egypt. Egypt said it had not received an asylum request.
“The attitude of many countries and their officials over the coup attempt in Turkey is shameful in the name of democracy”, Erdogan told hundreds of supporters at the presidential palace in the Turkish capital.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in response to Cavusoglu’s demand that Germany was “bound by the rule of law”.
“In a constitutional state-and this is what worries me and what I am following closely-the principle of proportionality must be ensured by all”, she told a news conference in Berlin. “This principle of proportionality must be respected under all circumstances”.
He complained no senior Western official had visited Turkey in the wake of the coup.
“We will surely eliminate all terror organizations that target our state, our nation and the indivisible unity of our country”, Yildirim said in televised remarks at the mausoleum. Those released included military high school students.
The army killed 35 Kurdish militants after they attempted to storm a base in the southeastern Hakkari province early on Saturday, military officials said.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Thursday chaired a top-level military meeting that is likely to lead to a major shake-up within the country’s armed forces following a failed coup by renegade military officers.
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Late Wednesday, the government issued a decree that transferred control of the paramilitary police force and the coast guard from the military to the government’s Interior Ministry.
