“A measured and careful response will sustain the unity of goal which we’ve seen so far and which was so clearly evident on the streets of Istanbul and Ankara”. “Who planned it and directed it, I do not know”, state-run news agency Anadolu quoted him as saying.
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Pro-Erdogan supporters gather at Taksim square in Istanbul to support the government on July 16, 2016, following a failed coup attempt.
It has also demanded the resignations of 1,577 university deans.
The failed coup and the subsequent crackdown followed moves by Erdogan to reshape both the military and the judiciary.
The comments come in the wake of Friday’s failed military coup and the president’s vow over the weekend that those responsible “will pay a heavy price for this act of treason”.
Around 6,000 people, including three Turkish top generals and hundreds of soldiers, were detained during the investigation launched after Turkish authorities had taken back the control over the situation in the country, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Sunday.
Turkey has blamed Friday’s events on supporters within the military of Gulen, who Ankara accused of running a group it dubs the “Fetullahci Terror Organisation” (FETO).
These questions are hard to answer as President Erdogan will look inwards to rectify many of his polices.
He said 14 soldiers had been detained in the coastal town of Marmaris for an attempted attack on Erdogan during the coup bid, but that several members of the group were still at large. In addition to denying his own involvement, Gulen “condemned” the coup, saying: “I have always been against military interventions in domestic politics”.
Erdogan has denounced the coup bid, which left more than 300 dead on all sides, as a treacherous bid to oust him from power devised from the USA compound of his arch-enemy, exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The vague directive doesn’t identify specific media outlets, leaving it open for interpretation.
He said Turkish reformists should ask themselves if they wanted progress to be “abruptly stopped” and said the European Union would make “no concessions on values”. Such an outcome creates an ultimate irony – and final condemnation – of the coup attempt.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials have blamed Gulen staying in self-imposed exile in the United States and his supporters for the coup attempt and called on his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to extradite the cleric, while speaking to a crowd of his supporters. “That’s what the people say”.
Religious authorities announced they have fired 492 staff, including clerics, preachers and religious teachers on suspicion they are linked to the botched coup. During his tenure as prime minister and then president, Erdogan has shown a willingness to dispense with the niceties of democratic practice in order to consolidate power.
The Turkish government had no information about Friday’s failed coup attempt until it was well underway, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday, appearing to contradict a previous statement from the military leadership. Such an approach is defensible in terms of USA interests in the Middle East.
“Erdogan isn’t particularly interested at joining the European Union at this point…”
He said he had no answer, but that Turkey would make the coup plotters answer “in such a way that the whole world will see”.
In a bid to calm markets roiled by the coup attempt, Turkey’s central bank cut a key interest rate to shore up liquidity in the economy. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said it has reduced its overnight marginal funding rate from 9 per cent to 8.75 per cent.
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Turkey could be headed for a period of slowed economic growth, a struggle to attract worldwide investors and financial market volatility.
