Turkey was scheduled to attend a meeting near Washington next week of the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition, although it was unclear if the attempted coup would affect that.
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“We condemn any military intervention in domestic politics of Turkey”, the group added. Gunfire was heard outside Turkey’s military headquarters in Ankara, while media reports said ambulances were seen out front.
State broadcaster TRT said the troops behind the putsch had declared martial law and a curfew, in a statement signed by a group calling itself the “Council for Peace in the Homeland”.
It said the coup had been launched “to ensure and restore constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms and let the supremacy of the law in the country prevail, to restore order which was disrupted”. We do not want the same hardships to be relived.
The government received expressions of support from members of the political opposition, including the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Airports were shut, access to Internet social media sites was cut off, and troops sealed off the two bridges over the Bosphorus in Istanbul, one of which was still lit up red, white and blue in solidarity with victims of the Bastille Day truck attack in France a day earlier. Cars are flowing from the European side of the city to the Asian, but soldiers and military vehicles are blocking the path to the European side. Crowds of people, some waving Turkish flags, gathered in major squares in Istanbul and Ankara to show support for the elected government. Some senior government officials were taken hostage, and 17 pro-Erdoğan police officers were reportedly killed. Private NTV television reported that one helicopter was shot down. Flight websites show no departing flights from Istanbul.
Looking pale and drawn as he spoke from what a presidential source said was a secure location, he urged people to take to the streets to resist the coup.
News reports said the military also took control of a television station. “I was forced by men with arms and they told us that they would not harm us if we did as told”. CNN Turk also reported that hostages were being held at the military headquarters. “That’s it, we now have to go”. The studio is now being emptied.
Erdogan’s critics have long accused him of undermining modern Turkey’s secular roots – but the president was believed to have won control of the military after purging elements who opposed him.
On Turkish television, Erdogan urged citizens to take to the streets to demonstrate their support of the government.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview over FaceTime with the CNN Turk, dismissed the action as “an attempt at an uprising by a minority within our armed forces”. “In history, nowhere in the world has a coup been successful….Sooner or later, they all fail”. He told state news agency Anadolu, “Never ever will we allow activity that disrupts democracy”. The country’s police has also encouraged people to do.
People surround a Turkish army tank in Ankara, Turkey on July 16.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, called for calm and restraint in Turkey, Anadolu Agency reported.
Erdogan said he was still president and Turkey’s commander in chief, promising that plotters would pay a “very heavy price”.
In a statement late Friday, Kerry said the United States has “the gravest concern’ about the attempted Turkish coup”.
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The Indian Embassy in Ankara has advised Indian nationals in Turkey to avoid public places and remain indoors until the situation there becomes clearer.
