A hastily-convened military council meeting came after the government ordered the discharge of 149 generals – almost half of the armed forces entire contingent of 358 – for alleged complicity in the putsch bid.
Advertisement
Eighty-seven land Army Generals, 30 Air Force Generals and 32 Admirals have been dishonourably discharged. The clampdown targets those suspected of ties to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of masterminding the plot.
The purges have also hit government ministries, schools and universities, the police, civil service, media and business.
Erdogan says Gulen harnessed his extensive network of schools, charities and businesses, built up in Turkey and overseas over decades, to create a secretive “parallel state” that aimed to take over the country.
“All politicians, including the president, were on a death list”. He is a U.S.-based preacher residing in Pennsylvania since 1999. Those in the Gulen movement who work in the judicial and security institutions and who received the aforementioned training, took on this task and moved into action, the document says, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.
“If we hadn’t removed the people this coup attempt would have been successful”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara Friday, speaking about the crackdown. “Nigeria is a sovereign country and is as if the Turkish Ambassador has the luxury of giving Nigerian authorities instructions on the place which employed about 2,000 Nigerians”.
Western governments and human rights groups have expressed concern over the scale of the purges, fearing the President may be using them to get rid of opponents and tighten his grip on power.
Authorities have issued warrants for the detention of 89 journalists in total.
Those sentiments are echoed by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
“But in a state of law, and that is what causes me concern and I am following very attentively, the principle of proportionality applies”. The United States has told Turkey to present evidence against him and let the US extradition process take its course.
Washington later dismissed the allegations against the general, with White House press secretary Josh Earnest calling them unsubstantiated.
There are further repercussions after Turkey’s failed coup. Seven years later, Obama finds himself obliged to support a tough military ruler in Cairo because Egypt is a key political and strategic ally in the Arab world.
He said: “Some people give us advice”. “The army has to stop being the army of the Fethullah Gulen terrorist organization”, Justice Minister Bozdag said.
In a symbol of the military s waning power, the meeting was held at the Cankaya Palace of the Turkish premier in Ankara and not, as is customary, at military headquarters.
Yildirim accompanied senior military officers to pay respects at Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara ahead of the meeting.
After a hearing lasting to midnight, four were freed but 17 placed under arrest ahead of trial, charged with “membership of a terror group”, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Late Wednesday, the government issued a decree that transferred control of the paramilitary police force and the coast guard from the military to the government’s Interior Ministry.
Advertisement
United States president Barack Obama was also forced into a denial, saying: “Any reports that we had any previous knowledge of a coup attempt – that there was any U.S. involvement in it – that we were anything other than entirely supportive of Turkish democracy are completely false, unequivocally false”.
