The commanders, including air force chief Gen. Abidin Unal, were removed by helicopter and later released when the coup attempt collapsed, according to Turkish media reports.
Advertisement
Ankara-Turkey will strongly adhere to democratic principles and rule of law, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Saturday, referring to the government’s crackdown in the aftermath of a failed military coup.
Nearly 300 of its officers have been detained after some of them forced TV news presenters to read statements stating that martial law had been declared during the abortive coup attempt.
Prosecutors said Turkey had set free 1,200 soldiers, all privates, detained in Ankara after the military coup, as authorities were seeking to swiftly sort out those who had fired on the people from those who did not. Gulen denies the charge and has condemned the coup. Today Erdogan’s declared nemesis is the moustachioed 73-year-old imam Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric he accuses of running a parallel “deep state” from faraway rural Pennsylvania.
Some Turks, possibly influenced by traditional mistrust of US policy in the region, have speculated that the United States is protecting Gulen and knew about the plot to overthrow the Turkish government.
The Iranian officials’ formal display of support for Turkey’s democratically-elected government in the early hours of the coup attempt was appreciable for Ankara, Reza Hakan Tekin said at a press conference in Tehran on Sunday.
Erdogan said he was cleansing all institutions in his country from supporters of the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).
The Presidential guard is a regiment that has around 2,500 soldiers and at least 283 people following the uprising.
Turkey, as a moderate Islamic state, a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and, in effect, the bridge and a barrier between Asia and Europe, is a major linchpin of USA relations with two critical regions, the Middle East and Europe. Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, has previously said Turkey is preparing a formal extradition but that Gulen “can easily be extradited on grounds of suspicion”.
Gulen sought to reassure his followers in a sermon posted on his movement’s main website. “Those who kneel in front of God will not kneel in front of anyone else”.
Turkey pushed on with a sweeping crackdown against suspected plotters of its failed coup Saturday, July 23, defiantly telling European Union critics it had no choice but to root out hidden enemies.
Gulen’s presence in the United States has strained Turkey’s ties with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partner which uses Turkish bases to strike Islamic State jihadists in Syria. It said this would facilitate a full investigation into the failed coup, Reuters reported.
Over 37,500 police staff and civil servants have been suspended, and more than 21,000 teachers have been stripped of their licenses.
The rally was organized by the opposition Republican People’s Party, which was close to secularist generals who used to control the military.
Responding to a question, the US President said he had said this in his recent conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also.
The rapid pace of arrests since the failed coup last Friday has anxious many of Turkey’s Western allies, who say they see Turkey going down an increasingly authoritarian road. “European countries apply the state of emergency in events with less importance compared to what lately happened in Turkey”, he said.
Advertisement
The coup began on July 15 and left 260 people dead.
