Share

Turkey pushes U.S. to arrest cleric suspected of plotting coup

The coup attempt shocked Turkey, which last saw a violent military power grab in 1980, and shook global confidence in the stability of the country.

Advertisement

Responding to widening global alarm about the crackdown, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim admitted there may have been some unfair treatment in the state sector.

“There are still some people who are unaware of what is going on in the world and saying ‘We don’t know if the person in America [Fetullah Gulen] is behind this [coup] attempt”.

“Our aim is that we set up such a system that nobody within the armed forces would ever consider a coup again”, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told a news conference on Monday.

On Sunday at least 35,000 rallied in Germany in support of the Turkish president, according to German media.

Tens of thousands of Turks living in Germany demonstrated in support of Mr Erdogan in Cologne. Much to the anger of Turkish officials, a German court made a decision to ban the demonstration’s organizers from screening politicians’ live speeches from Turkey, including an address by Erdogan.

Presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, slammed the ban and said it was a “violation of the freedom of expression and the right to free assembly”.

A spokeswoman for the German embassy told AFP that the charge d’affaires had “been summoned to the Turkish foreign ministry at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT)” on Monday over the rally.

Kurtulmus said German courts normally address cases very slowly, “yet the German Constitutional Court prohibited our president addressing the rally via teleconference in less than 24 hours”.

Gulen has an estimated 100,000 followers in Germany, which is home to about 3 million people of Turkish heritage.

United States officials openly supported President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the night of failed coup, but then joined the rest of the West in criticising the Turkish government for the massive crackdown which started immediately afterwards, allegedly aimed at the coup’s instigators but also suspected to be targeting the opposition. President Barack Obama’s administration has condemned the coup, but Erdogan has remained suspicious.

Prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting Erdogan since he became president in 2014 after serving as prime minister for 11 years.

Erdoğan criticised the West’s approach after the failed coup in Turkey.

Mr Tufenkci pointed out Turkey had managed to regain control quickly after the coup on 15 July, with markets opening as normal the following Monday.

The commandos, who allegedly joined a conspiracy initiated by a rebel faction of the military to topple the government, had been on the run since early July 16, when they assaulted a seaside hotel in Marmaris where Erdogan had been vacationing. The resentment stems from long-running rift between Turkey and a number of European countries on the fight against terror which seems to have deepened in the aftermath of the coup attempt after the support the Turkish government expected failed to arrive. “If I stayed (in Marmaris) 10, 15 minutes more, I would either have been killed or kidnapped and taken away by them”, he said.

Advertisement

The attack was carried out by the members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), sources said.

Turkey again requests US to arrest Fetullah Gulen