“The state of emergency in Turkey won’t include restrictions on movement, gatherings and free press etc”.
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Erdogan spoke following a National Security Council and cabinet meeting at the Parliament building in Ankara, which was targeted by bombing during the failed uprising on 15 July.
“It is more important than ever for the Turkish government to respect human rights and the rule of law in ways the coup plotters did not”.
The US is prepared to work and discuss with the Turkey on the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, US Ambassador to Ankara John Bass said in a statement on Monday.
According to Turkish officials, the attempted coup was well planned and orchestrated, an early indication of the scale of the internal opposition the Turkish state regards as aligned against it.
The cleric has been accused by Turkey of influencing a failed military coup in the country last week.
Tens of thousands of civil service employees, including teachers, accused of ties to the plot or suspected of links to a USA -based cleric whom authorities accuse of being the behind the plot, have also been fired. “That’s what the people say”, Mr Erdogan said.
In one dramatic example of that bravery, a man was filmed being run over by two separate tanks as he tried to stop them.
More than 20,000 teachers and administrators have so far been suspended by the ministry, with 95 academics removed from their posts at Istanbul University alone, state TRT television reported.
The leader of the Justice and Development Party, Erdogan, said he was officially declaring three months of state emergency.
Erdogan said the organization led by US -based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for the coup, was led by a “superior mind”. He has denied any involvement in the abortive coup.
German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Turkey’s state of emergency should only last as long as it is “absolutely necessary”.
The popular president whose people helped resist the military coup said he did not want to destroy relations with the USA, but the country should do as they are asked.
Even without the emergency measures, the government has already imposed a crackdown that has included mass arrests and the closure of hundreds of schools.
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In one of his rare interviews, Fethullah Gulen told reporters at his Pennsylvania compound in the United States, that he knows only a “minute fraction” of his legions of sympathizers in Turkey, so he can not speak to their “potential involvement” in the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
