Turkey’s National Security Council convened Wednesday under the chairmanship of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the aftermath of last week’s failed coup attempt.
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Turks have been taken aback by the speed and scope of the arrests, firings and suspensions across the country since the failed coup.
Erdogan has furiously pointed blame at his arch-foe Gulen, a US-based Islamic preacher whose Hizmet movement has a powerful presence in Turkish society, including the media, police and judiciary.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, one of the opposition groups, said in an interview Tuesday that he first needs to see a draft of the changes and will support them if they improve Turkey’s democracy. A further 492 people were removed from duty at the Religious Affairs Directorate, 257 at the prime minister’s office and 300 at the energy ministry.
“It would be a radical decision for defense-related issues”, the official said.
Lt. Col. Levent Turkkan allegedly told interrogators that coup plotters wanted to detain top civilian and military leaders, a plan that largely failed.
Erdogan told CNN this week his life had been in grave danger.
This recent cross-border attack comes as Turkey’s military deals with the aftermath of an attempted coup, carried out by a faction within its armed forces. The US Department of Justice has not confirmed that an official extradition request has been filed.
“We have collected many documents”. Tensions are running high amid reports that rebel jets targeted the president’s plane as he flew into Istanbul from a vacation during the coup attempt.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed Ankara had filed materials in electronic form with the USA government, which officials were reviewing. It does not cover offenses “of a political character”, although it does cover “any offense committed or attempted against a head of state”, the treaty says.
Any extradition request would face legal and political hurdles in the United States.
For an alleged offense by Gulen to qualify as political, “he has to say, essentially, ‘I’m not being accused of a crime but I’m being accused because I’m an enemy of the government, ‘” said Ronald Hedges, a former USA magistrate judge who presided at extradition hearings.
People protest against the coup in Ankara, capital of Turkey, on July 16, 2016. “It depends on what model they use and how it gets drafted”, he said. He said it would be used to go after “rogue” elements within the state and that there would have been “carnage in the streets” had the military coup succeeded.
Erdogan claimed the coup was an opportunity to “purge the military” from mutineers, and said that those who committed the “act of treason” would have to “pay a heavy price”.
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Turkey’s Foreign Minister said criticism of the government’s response amounted to backing for the bid to overthrow it.
