Western leaders have expressed solidarity with the government over the coup attempt but also alarm at the sweeping response, urging Turkey to adhere to democratic values.
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Ankara had earlier demanded Washington hand Gulen over to Turkish authorities, though United States officials said that no official request for extradition had been submitted.
Erdogan’s suggestion that the death penalty could be reinstated has sent shudders through Europe and sparked warnings such a move would be the nail in the coffin of its already embattled bid to join the EU.
More than 6,000 soldiers and around 1,500 others have been detained since the abortive coup.
The Turkish ministry of education announced that 15,200 educations staff was suspended in relation to alleged ties to cleric accused of organising last week’s failed coup.
It also told universities that academics who are already overseas on work or study missions should return home “within the shortest possible time”.
Later, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Turkey had submitted materials related to Gulen and the administration was reviewing whether they amounted to a formal extradition request.
An Ankara court late yesterday placed under arrest 26 former generals suspected of planning Friday’s attempted power grab, including former air force chief General Akin Ozturk, whom some Turkish media have painted as the mastermind of the plot.
Tens of thousands of civil service employees, including teachers, accused of ties to the plot or suspected of links to a US -based cleric whom authorities accuse of being the behind the plot, have also been fired. During the coup attempt, which lasted about 12 hours, we lived through a miniature version of this civil war with all its horrors: pro-coup soldiers clashed violently with the police, military officers opened fire on civilians, angry demonstrators lynched surrendered soldiers, military aircraft and helicopters bombed the parliament and other government buildings.
All 3,000 or so USA military personnel based in and near the Incirlik air base in Turkey have been accounted for, as have munitions and aircraft, and operations to combat Islamic State extremists in Syria and Iraq continue, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. “They might have different plans for the next period”, the president said.
He called the putsch attempt “treason, a betrayal of the Turkish nation”.
The mass dismissals of Turkish teachers and closure of hundreds of schools allegedly linked to the coup plotters suggest societal shifts are afoot that could empower Erdogan’s conservative Islamic base.
The coup crumbled after Erdogan, on holiday with his family at the coastal resort of Marmaris, phoned in to a television news programme and called for his followers to take to the streets.
Erdogan told CNN his life had been in grave danger.
“A government should not decide the hiring and firing, ” he said.
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Elaborating on a huge number of detentions and purge in state institutions, he said every step was taken within the law.
