Of those, more than 8,000 were formally arrested pending trial, it said. The top-level military meet… The Supreme Military Council, gathering top commanders of NATO’s sec…
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Yildirim accompanied senior military officers to pay respects at Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara ahead of the meeting.
Turkey’s military, the second-largest in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, has been hard hit in the wake of the coup.
Erdogan also said, “Even during the coup attempt process, we have not made the slightest compromise with the law”.
Relations between Washington and Ankara soured following the foiled coup attempt on July 15.
On Friday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced the closure of the air base and the army barracks, all located near the capital Ankara. Two generals resigned as the meeting convened.
Meanwhile, more than 66,000 people employed in state institutions have been dismissed from their duties amid a nationwide probe into the July 15 failed coup.
“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 country’s foreign minister Melvlut Cavusoglu says almost 90 employees of his ministry have been let go for their potential connection to the coup. Dozens of media organizations, a lot of them also linked to Gulen, were ordered shuttered late Wednesday.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States for years, denies the charge and has condemned the coup.
Embroidered images of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen (L) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) are pictured at a market in Gaziantep, Turkey, January 17, 2014.
The general said he was concerned that the coup’s aftermath “will have an impact on the operations that we do”.
On Thursday, Cavusoglu told local media CNN Turk that ties between Turkey and the USA would be impacted if the US did not hand over Gulen to Turkey.
“I can see now that I gave them too much credit”.
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.
He said Turkey had received intelligence that Gulen might flee to another country, so the foreign ministry was issuing “necessary warnings”.
The European Union and journalist associations expressed concern Thursday about a widening crackdown on media in Turkey, calling on Ankara to respect fundamental freedoms.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was “right and important” for Turkey to pursue the coup plotters.
“In a constitutional state, and this is what worries me and what I am following closely, the principle of proportionality must be ensured under all circumstances”.
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The council is comprised of the heads of the various divisions of the army, as well as Turkey’s prime minister and the defence minister. Erdogan has declared a three month state of emergency in the country, and is making moves to bring the military – which has traditionally operated independently of the civilian government – more directly under his control.
