Responding to Juncker’s comments, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Haberturk TV that Europe can not threaten Turkey regarding the death penalty.
Advertisement
Last week, Turkey declared a three-month state of emergency, allowing the president and the government to bypass parliament when drafting new laws and to restrict or suspend rights and freedoms. “Since then it has become clear that the perpetrators were a small group of soldiers loyal to Gülen and his FETÖ terrorist organization”, the petition said.
Arrest warrants for 42 journalists have been issued and over 220 employees of the state-owned national carrier Turkish Airlines have also been dismissed.
Like many Turkish citizens, the Hizmet movement’s participants supported Mr. Erdogan’s early efforts to democratize Turkey and fulfill the requirements for membership in the European Union.
Erdogan accuses US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has many followers in Turkey, of masterminding the coup plot.
Gulen, 75, whose foundation runs a global network of schools, charities and media interests, has strongly denied the accusations.
The man accused of masterminding and leading a recent bloody coup attempt in Turkey, penned an Op-Ed for The New York Times on Monday to ask the USA not to extradite him to Turkey to face charges.
“Russia is not only our valuable neighbor, but also our important and strategic partner”, Simsek said.
Cavusoglu is heading to Washington this week to discuss the matter, but lawyers said the process, if launched, would take years.
Nedim Sener, a journalist once jailed after investigating alleged infiltration of the Turkish state by Gulen supporters, noted that backers of the cleric targeted reporters such as himself in the years when they controlled parts of the police and judiciary.
Gulen is wanted on charges including treason, although he denies any wrongdoing.
Conservative Turkish daily, Yeni Safak (New Dawn), has gone ahead and named the man it says organized and financed the failed coup, General John F. Campbell, former commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the abortive coup, more than 100 of them already charged pending trial. Turkey is an important ally for the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and this alliance has stood for nearly a century.
“Those who are innocent should not be thrown into the fire with those who are guilty”, said Kilicdaroglu, leader of the pro-secular main opposition Republican People’s Party.
Amnesty International claims that Erdogan’s government is violating the human rights of suspects.
A bridge over the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul – which saw some of the fiercest fighting – is to be renamed July 15 Martyrs’ Bridge after the victims of the failed coup bid, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.
On Sunday, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to defend Turkey’s actions.
Advertisement
Several military bosses, soldiers, police, judges and civil servants have been arrested in the past two weeks. The statement has an “heroic” tone underlining the strength of the Erdogan’s government. He demanded that the United States extradite me from my home in Pennsylvania, where I have lived in voluntary exile since 1999.
