Turkey’s Premier met top military commanders on Thursday over one of the most radical shake-ups in the armed forces’ history after a failed coup, which has already seen 149 generals dishonourably discharged.
Advertisement
Turkish authorities have detained, suspended or placed under investigation tens of thousands of teachers, police, journalists and other people since the putsch links to Gulen.
Turkey has demanded the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania whom it accuses of being behind the violent July 15 coup attempt that left 290 people dead. Gulen denies any involvement in the coup.
“Instead of thanking this nation that quashed the coup in the name of democracy, on the contrary, you are taking sides with the coup plotters”, Erdogan said, according to the Associated Press.
The commander of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, on Friday rejected claims by Turkish officials that he supported a failed coup attempt earlier this month.
That change would require a constitutional change and the opposition needs to agree, Erdogan was cited as saying by television news channels.
Both the armed forces and the intelligence agency now report to the prime minister.
“And then they say that “Erdogan has got so angry”!”
The United States and the European Union, which Turkey wants to join, have expressed alarm over the scale of the purges.
Gulen is also accused of running a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as the parallel state.
“There’s no question this is going to set back and make more hard cooperation with the Turks”, Clapper said.
“If we hadn’t removed the people this coup attempt would have been successful”, foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara.
Turkey hosts US troops and warplanes at Incirlik Air Base, from which the United States flies sorties against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
Senior U.S. leaders, including President Barack Obama, have spoken with their Turkish counterparts in the last two weeks since the coup attempt. “We appreciate Turkey’s continuing cooperation and look forward to our future partnership in the counter-ISIL fight”, he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“These journalists worked in media organisations that belonged to this terror organisation”, Mr Cavusoglu said.
Teams from the Izmir Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau conducted simultaneous operations around the city and apprehended several suspects, the agency reported.
Advertisement
“They were not only engaged in journalistic activity, they were engaged in activities that included the fabrication of evidence that served (the Gulen movement)”, he said.
