The announcement followed long meetings of Turkey’s national security council and cabinet chaired by Erdogan at the presidential palace.
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“To be able to take the most efficient steps in order to remove this threat as soon as possible, which is a threat to democracy, to the rule of law, to the rights and freedoms of our citizens in our country”.
“This measure is in no way against democracy, the law and freedoms”, he added. “Quite on the contrary, it has the goal of strengthening and protecting these values”.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ahmed Abou Zaid said Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan insulted the Egyptian leadership while speaking to Al Jazeera.
Turkey imposed emergency rule in the southeast of Turkey in 1987, allowing officials to set curfews, issue search and arrest warrants and restrict gatherings as the security forces fought Kurdish rebels. “Given this imperative, Canada is concerned by the state of emergency declared by President Erdogan today”.
The pro-government death toll in the botched coup has been estimated at 246.
“Europe does not have the right to criticize this decision”, Erdogan said of the state of emergency.
The move frees the government of nearly all constitutional restraints and enables Erdogan to continue his broad purge of thousands of suspected supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a US -based Muslim cleric he has accused of instigating last week’s coup attempt.
Turkish cleric and opponent to the Erdogan regime Fethullah Gulen addresses at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania on July 18, 2016 allegations by the Turkish government about his involvement in the attempted July 15 coup. I don’t think vanquishing this coup attempt has reached an end.
Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric based in the U.S., and his people were behind Friday’s coup attempt, Erdogan said.
The US-based cleric’s movement, which espouses moderation and multi-faith harmony, says it is a scapegoat. Will he? Or will Mr Erdogan go right back to his preferred means of staying in power: dividing Turks into his supporters and enemies of the state, weaving conspiracy theories and using the failed coup as a licence for a witch-hunt, not only for plotters but for anyone who has dared to cross his path? The country has been through four successful military coups since its founding almost a century ago.
He said: “The people now have the idea, after so many terrorist incidents, that these terrorists should be killed, they don’t see any other outcome to it”.
Turkey has demanded Gulen’s extradition from the United States.
Erdogan has called on the USA to extradite Fetullah Gulen, who he believes is at least partly responsible for the coup – a charge Gulen denies.
“It is important for all of us that Turkey continue to be a strong North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally because Turkey is on the border of all the instability, all the violence we have seen in Iraq and Syria”, Stoltenberg said.
Turkey’s domestic situation is increasingly a concern as the crackdown widens.
“There will be no restriction of movement other than for the suspects”, Simsek said. So they’ve fired more than 15,000 school teachers, demanded resignations from over 1,500 university deans, and suspended around 8,000 police officers – along with almost 3,000 judges and prosecutors. The defence ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors, and has suspended 262 of them, according to NTV, while 900 police officers in the capital Ankara were suspended on Wednesday.
“I am not talking about the private soldiers. They said on television that some of the privates were innocent”, Ay said.
The instability is hurting confidence in the Turkish economy.
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The lira hit a 10-month low in early trade on Wednesday, touching 3.063 to the dollar. Of those, 317 are members of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.
