Erdogan has put the blame for the coup attempt firmly on US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.
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But the fact is, as head of the Turkish state since 2003 – first as prime minister and since 2014 as president – Erdogan has methodically exerted control over Turkish institutions and cashiered thousands of officers in Turkey’s military, the traditional pro-Western bulwark against those who would end Turkey’s secular democracy, first established by Ataturk in 1923.
He said that the outcome would feed Erdogan’s desire to seek constitutional change for a presidential system in Turkey at a time when he already has unprecedented powers over politics, the economy and the media in Turkey.
Sweeping purges in the aftermath of the coup has seen the dismissal of thousands from the judiciary, police force, military, bureaucracy and religious affairs departments.
Government-backed forces have arrested more than 7,000 people and gutted some its security forces, dismissing nearly 9,000 people from the Interior Ministry, mostly police officers.
Turkey’s High Education board has also ordered the resignation of over 1,500 university deans, state media reported.
The group of soldiers who attempted to topple the Turkish government last week are no different to the jihadist militant group Islamic State (ISIS), Turkey’s Foreign Minister said at a pro-government rally in Ankara on Monday.
Members of Turkey’s military attempted to stage a coup on Friday night, but they were repelled after President Erdogan appealed to his supporters to take to the streets to save the regime in a Facetime interview with a television network.
“We have more than enough evidence, more than you could ask for, on Gulen”, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters outside parliament. The request would then go before a judge, who would rule on whether probable cause existed that a crime was committed and that the accused person did it.
She said the early signs of whether president Erdogan will undermine or strengthen democracy were “deeply worrying”.
Over the weekend, Turkey responded to the coup attempt by rounding up some 6,000 people, including hundreds of judges and prosecutors.
Eight soldiers have sought asylum in neighboring Greece and Turkey says they must be handed back or it will not help relations between the neighbors, which have always been uneasy.
“We will dig them up by their roots so that no clandestine terrorist organisation will have the nerve to betray our blessed people again”.
Around 1,400 others were wounded as soldiers commandeered tanks, attack helicopters and warplanes in their bid to seize power, strafing parliament and the intelligence headquarters and trying to seize the main airport and bridges in Istanbul.
It said the “traitors” would be punished severely for the “humiliation and disgrace” of the Turkish republic.
But he said Turkey was “a democratic state run by the rule of law”.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said criticism of the government’s response amounted to backing for the bid to overthrow it.
Erdogan’s suggestion the death penalty could be reinstated has also sent shudders through Europe, with the European Union warning such a move would be the nail in the coffin of Turkey’s already embattled bid to join the bloc.
President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday told crowds of supporters, called to the streets by the government and by mosques across the country, that Parliament must consider their demands to apply the death penalty for the plotters. Many European leaders are still seething over the Turkish leader’s role in helping to create last summer’s migration crisis, when he failed to take firm measures to curb the activities of people-smuggling gangs.
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The crackdown was escalated Tuesday, as the government announced the firing of almost 24,000 teachers and Interior Ministry employees and demanded the resignations of another 1,577 university deans as well as hundreds of other government employees.
