The decree gives Erdogan and prime minister Binali Yildrim the power to issue direct orders to army, navy and air force commanders.
Advertisement
Turkey’s soccer federation says all members of its committees have resigned to help the investigation into the movement of a U.S.-based cleric who the country’s government says was behind the failed July 15 coup that left more than 200 people dead. Mr Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the USA for years, denies the charge and has condemned the coup.
Authorities have continued to search for army personnel suspected of participation in the failed coup. Television footage showed armed forces running through forest roads while a helicopter hovered overhead.
Yet, the Western world has never seen such resistance by the public against an attempted coup, stopping tanks and armored vehicles.
The government has since vowed to “cleanse” the civil service of his supporters.
In addition, Deputy Prime Ministers and justice, foreign and interior ministers will also be included to the Supreme Military Council (YAS).
The emergency decree published Sunday “closes all of Turkey’s war academies, military high schools, and high schools that train non-commissioned officers”, according to Anadolu. More than 9,000 of them have been formally arrested.
He said he wanted the national intelligence agency and the chief of general staff, the most senior military officer, to report directly to the presidency, moves that would require a constitutional change and therefore the backing of opposition parties.
The package would need to be brought to parliament for a vote.
Turkey has called on the United States to extradite Mr Gulen, but Washington has resisted, without evidence of his involvement in the coup.
Security was tight in the immediate area around Incirlik on Sunday, Turkish security sources said, before an expected visit by the USA chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford.
Tens of thousands of supporters of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are to hold a rally in the German city of Cologne, as tensions over Turkey’s failed coup put authorities on edge.
Police said some 20,000 people gathered in wet weather Sunday afternoon at the riverside rally, across the Rhine from downtown Cologne.
Germany is home to the largest Turkish diaspora with three million residents in the country having Turkish ancestry.
“We are here because our compatriots in Germany are standing up for democracy and against the attempted military coup in Turkey”, said Turkey’s sport and youth minister, Akif Cagatay Kilic, who attended the rally.
Advertisement
Gokcek said he was “absolutely in favour” of the death penalty for the coup plotters and brushed off warnings from the European Union that reinstating capital punishment could end Turkey’s decades-long bid to join the bloc.
