Some prisoners are excluded from the measures: people convicted of murder, domestic violence, sexual abuse or terrorism and other crimes against the state.
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“The regulation refers to crimes committed before July 2016”.
The timing means that it is impossible that anyone detained for complicity in the coup can be released as part of the mass parole move.
Turkey believes the Muslim cleric is the masterminded the failed July 15 putsch when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, warplanes and helicopters in an attempt to overthrow the government.
The discharges started just hours after the government issued a decree for the conditional release of some 38,000 prisoners under Turkey’s three-month long state of emergency that was declared following the coup.
Bozdag, however, did not outline his reasoning for the move.
The justice minister said those who had served half their sentence, rather than two-thirds, would be eligible.
The Turkish state has said the defeated coup, which left 240 people martyred and almost 2,200 injured, was organized by followers of Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, in the US, since 1999.
Ankara accuses Fetullah Gulen of masterminding the failed coup and has sent the US two official requests for his extradition to face trial.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said late Wednesday that 40,029 state employees have been detained in the crackdown on alleged Gulen supporters in the wake of the failed July 15 coup, of whom 20,335 have been remanded in custody.
Tens of thousands of people with suspected links to Mr Gulen have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs in the judiciary, media, education, health care, military and local government.
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The crackdown has raised concerns by the European Union and human rights organisations, who have urged the Turkish government to show restraint.
