The cleric denies the charges and Erdogan’s critics say the president is using the purges to clamp down on dissent.
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Erdogan’s comments came after a five-hour meeting of Turkey’s Supreme Military Council (YAS)-chaired by Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and including the top brass-and the dishonorable discharge of almost 1,700 military personnel over their alleged role in the abortive putsch on July 15-16.
Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death on the night of the coup, told Reuters in an interview last week that the military, NATO’s second biggest, needed “fresh blood”. The dishonourable discharges included around 40 percent of Turkey’s admirals and generals.
The Turkish government has engaged in a sweeping crackdown against alleged members of the Gulen movement lead by Pennsylvania-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara claims is behind the coup.
But the government has also admitted there were intelligence weaknesses leading up to the coup.
That change would require a constitutional change and the opposition needs to agree, Erdogan was cited as saying by television news channels.
Both the general staff and the intelligence agency now report to the prime minister’s office. Putting them under the president’s overall direction would be in line with Erdogan’s push for a new constitution centered on a strong executive presidency.
“The putschist is already in your country”, Erdogan said. Ankara has also repeatedly demanded that the United States extradite Gulen to Turkey, while Washington has maintained that Turkey must first file a formal extradition request and provide solid proof of his involvement in the coup.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the U.S. Friday and criticized a senior military commander who had expressed concerns that the violent July 15 coup could have longer-term impact on U.S. relations with the Turkish military.
Cavusoglu told broadcaster CNN Turk that some prosecutors with links to Gulen had fled to Germany and he urged Berlin to extradite them.
Immediately after the failed coup attempt, the Turkish government criticized the USA for providing safe haven for Gulen, saying that a country that harbors the coup planner is no friend to Turkey.
Attempting to reassure the United States, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday that Turkey’s armed forces, “cleansed” of their Gulenist elements, would prove more “trustworthy … and effective” allies against Islamic State.
Kretschmann said he has seen no evidence to back Turkey’s assertion that the Gulen movement was responsible for the coup attempt or that Islamization is taking place at schools in Germany. The Supreme Military Council, gathering top comman. The military has ousted four governments in the past 60 years.
The failed intervention by a faction of the military to overthrow the government on July 15 killed more than 240 people and posed the gravest threat yet to Erdogan’s 13 years in power before it was quickly put down by loyalist forces. Erdogan, who is now Turkeys president, called it a judicial coup attempt, while accusing Gulen and his movement of orchestrating it with the help of some foreign forces..
The military council meeting had been scheduled for early August but was brought forward following the coup attempt.
“There is no doubt that we will eradicate all terrorist organizations threatening our state, our nation and our territorial integrity”, Yildirim said, reading from a message he wrote in the mausoleum visitors’ book.
Late Wednesday, the government issued a decree that removed the paramilitary police force and the coast guard from military command and placed them under the control of the Interior Ministry.
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Thousands more have been detained and almost 70,000 people have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs in the education, media, health care, military and judicial sectors. Of those, more than 8,000 were formally arrested pending trial, it said.
