“We will dig them up by their roots”, he told parliament.
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A former ally-turned critic of Erdogan, he suggested the president staged it as an excuse for a crackdown after a steady accumulation of control during 14 years in power.
Erdogan said he will bring back the death penalty if the public wants it.
In addition, 257 people working at the office of the prime minister are dismissed and the Directorate of Religious Affairs announces it has sacked 492 staff including clerics, preachers and religious teachers.
The Turkish government under Erdogan has now arrested, fired or suspended a total of more than 50,000 people in its post-coup d’etat attempt crackdown.
Yildirim accused the United States of double standards in its fight against terrorism.
The targeting of education ties in with Erdogan’s belief that the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whose followers run a worldwide network of schools, seeks to infiltrate the Turkish education system and other institutions in order to bend the country to his will. The cleric’s movement, which espouses moderation and multi-faith harmony, says it is a scapegoat for what it describes as the president’s increasingly autocratic conduct. Many of those held were not documented nor were their identifies verified, the police said. But I can assure you that we are committed to reviewing quickly as soon as we receive materials. Earnest added that a decision on whether to extradite would be made under a longstanding treaty between the two countries.
Earlier, Turkey’s Justice Ministry it had sent a dossier to the United States on Gulen, but did not make clear whether that amounted to an official extradition request.
If the request survived those tests and is found lawful, it would still need to get the approval of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who can consider non-legal factors, such as humanitarian arguments.
Bayram Balci, Turkey expert at Ceri Sciences Po in Paris, said that the coup was nothing less than a “gift from heaven” for Erdogan. Huseyin Ozev, an education union leader in Istanbul, said state education workers who were reported to have been fired had not received notices and that employees were “waiting at home or on vacation, anxiously”, to see if they had lost their jobs.
“It is really nonsensical”, Ibrahim Kalin said. Raids were also launched to capture or kill President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as kidnap the chief of the armed forces.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, voiced “serious alarm” on Tuesday at the mass suspension of judges and prosecutors and urged Turkey to allow independent monitors to visit those who have been detained.
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And while responding to crowds of supporters calling for the death penalty for the plotters on Sunday, President Tayyip Erdogan said such demands could not be ignored. It says authorities have blocked access to more than 20 news websites, canceled press cards for 34 journalists, and issued an arrest warrant for one journalist for her coverage of the coup. A court remanded 26 generals and admirals in custody on Monday, Turkish media said.
