A spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan said the government was preparing a formal request to the United States for the extradition of Gulen, who Turkey says orchestrated the failed military takeover on Friday in which at least 232 people were killed.
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Under a state of emergency in Turkey, the president can largely rule by decree.
“As you surely know, universities have always been crucial for military juntas in Turkey, and certain individuals are believed to be in contact with cells within military”, the official said, The Washington Post reported.
Separately, Defence Secretary Ash Carter said his counterpart, Defence Minister Fikri Isik, assured him in a phone call on Tuesday that the coup and its aftermath would not affect Turkey’s support for the fight against the Islamic State group.
Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has released almost 300,000 emails linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, with Turkey immediately blocking access on Wednesday.
Erdogan also dismissed suggestions that Turkish democracy was under any threat and that he was becoming authoritarian.
More than 50,000 civil service employees, including police, judges and the military, have been fired since the coup, the AP reported. 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.
“We owe it to our people to go after them”, he said.
“There will be no curfews”.
They had a list of suspects of possible Gulen movement members.
The move will allow the despot to bypass parliament in passing new laws. Lawmakers can sanction a state of emergency for a period of up to six months.
The military has long seen itself as the guardian of secularism in this mostly Muslim country and has staged a series of coups in past decades, but its power has been gradually diminished. It is unclear how many soldiers continued on with the attack.
In the first air strikes since the coup, fighter jets late Tuesday hit targets of the PKK in the Hakurk region of northern Iraq, said the state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting security sources.
The attackers arrived minutes after Erdogan had left the hotel, according to official reports. “The validity of charges, if any, and the eventual sentences they would face, will be determined by the Turkish courts”.
Turkey has demanded their return to stand trial for alleged participation in the coup attempt.
Erdogan was in the Aegean resort of Marmaris when the coup struck and then flew to Istanbul where he had stayed since, appearing before supporters each night in a “vigil” for democracy. In countries around the world?
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Erdogan, who has led Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003, has vowed to clean the “virus” responsible for the plot from all state institutions.
