After President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to his U.S. counterpart over the phone, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States had offered its assistance but urged Turkey to show restraint.
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“This practice is absolutely not against democracy, the rule of law and freedoms, quite on the contrary, it has the goal of strengthening and protecting these values”, he said.
“I would like to underline that the declaration of the state of emergency has the sole objective of taking the necessary measures, in the face of the terrorist threat that our country is facing”, he said, vowing that the “virus in the military will be cleansed”.
The attempt to seize power by members of Turkey’s armed forces was bloody, leaving almost 300 people dead.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday chaired a crunch security meeting for the first time since the failed coup, as global alarm grew over a widening purge that has seen around 50,000 people either detained or sacked.
“The cleansing is continuing, and we remain very determined”, Erdogan said.
The step allows for the president and the cabinet to make laws by decree, bypassing parliament, as well as to impose curfews and restrict public gatherings.
The education ministry said it made a decision to close 626 private schools and other establishments under investigation for “crimes against the constitutional order and the running of that order”, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. “If I stayed (in Marmaris) 10, 15 minutes more, I would either have been killed or kidnapped and taken away by them”, he said.
Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup attempt, a second senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held.
Analysts have raised fears that Erdogan may be moving toward establishing a one-party state.
The authorities have said they will seek the extradition of Gulen, who has denounced the coup attempt and denied any involvement, suggesting it may have been staged by Erdogan as an excuse to crack down on the religious movement.
“In a country where our youths are killed with tanks and bombs, if we stay silent, as political people we will be held responsible in the afterlife”, Erdogan said, pointing out that capital punishment exists around the world, including in the United States and China. Even if approved by a judge, it would still have to go to Secretary of State John Kerry, who can consider non-legal factors, such as humanitarian arguments. The men say they did not know a coup was under way and they were obeying orders by their superiors to transport the wounded from the streets to ambulances, their lawyers say.
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The travel restrictions on educators apply to work-related trips, the state broadcaster TRT reported.
