At a Pentagon briefing defending Gen. Votel, Cook said the “U.S. has repeatedly condemned the failed coup in Turkey” and added that “we continue to have excellent military relations with Turkey”.
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Turkey has blamed the attempt on a faction within the military loyal to the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania but has a wide following in Turkey. Arrest warrants for dozens of others were issued earlier this week.
On Thursday, Turkish media sources reported quoting Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, that 88 employees had been laid off from his department.
The Government of Turkey, on Thursday, said it had alerted the Federal Government on the existence of schools and hospitals owned by suspected terrorists in Nigeria.
“Many of our interlocutors have been purged or arrested.
We will not play your game!” said Erdogan.
Mr Erdogan says Mr Gulen lords over a “parallel state” through legions of followers in his secretive organisation, and demands his extradition.
In the central city of Kayseri, a stronghold of Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party, police detained the chairman of furniture-to-cables conglomerate Boydak Holding and two company executives as part of the investigation into the “Gulenist Terror Group”, Anadolu reported.
Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 generals were detained, and more than 100 of them have been charged pending trial.
Turkey has sought to cultivate close ties with Turkic-speaking Kyrgyzstan but Bishkek has found itself targeted by angry accusations from Turkish officials that it has not done enough to crack down on Gulen’s influence.
“But in a state of law, and that is what causes me concern and I am following very attentively, the principle of proportionality applies … and this principle of proportionality is perhaps not always at the centre”.
Long-standing partners in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and officially fighting side-by-side against the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, the U.S. and Turkey have endured severe strains in recent months that were aggravated by the foiled coup in mid-July.
In a symbolic sign of how civilian authorities are now firmly in charge, Thursday’s military council meeting was held at the prime minister’s office rather than General Staff headquarters.
The announcement came only a day after the Turkish government issued a new decree announcing that the gendarmerie and the coast guard would in future fall under the interior ministry and not the army.
“Erdogan’s ongoing purge of newspapers, academics, teachers and judges has nothing to do with Turkey’s security and everything to do with blocking any opposition to his increasingly authoritarian rule”, he said in a statement to the Lib Dem voice blog.
Turkish authorities have detained, suspended or placed under investigation tens of thousands of teachers, police, journalists and other people since the July 15-16 putsch over suspected links to Gulen.
Turkey already has a poor track record on media freedom, ranking 151 out of 180 countries in this year’s World Press Freedom Index.
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Erdogan criticised the European Council and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to be a part of, for failing to visit to offer condolences, saying their criticism was “shameful”.
