The arrest of thousands of military officers across Turkey has created a new cadre of leaders who will be preoccupied with monitoring their ranks for trouble, said Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey and undersecretary for defense policy under former president George W. Bush.
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“It is very clear that there were significant gaps and deficiencies in our intelligence, there is no point trying to hide it or deny it”.
The president also admitted that there was a weakness in Turkey’s intelligence sector and coup attempts may not end.
He has accused followers of his arch-enemy, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, of being behind the coup, which has led to a wave of some 50,000 arrests and sackings of suspected conspirators.
About 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or are under investigation since the military coup attempt. Erdogan was heading the meeting Wednesday of the council, which is the highest advisory body on security issues.
“As the commander in chief, I will also attend to it so that all the viruses within the armed forces will be cleansed”. “But there are reasons to be hopeful, there are reasons to think that the scourge of coups, military takeovers in Turkey has finally been eliminated”, she says.
The lights at the palace, which usually illuminate the night sky, have been dimmed in recent days.
Erdogan said there was no obstacle to extending the state of emergency beyond the initial three months if necessary.
Erdogan said the state of emergency, which would last three months, would allow his government to take swift and effective measures against supporters of the coup.
“This state of emergency is not a curfew”.
“Life of ordinary people and businesses will go un-impacted, uninterrupted, business will be as usual”, he wrote on Twitter. “So that they’re taking a close look at their military and talking to members of their own military should not surprise anyone”, Kirby said.
“We will continue the fight. wherever they might be”.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “She remarked on the bravery of so many Turkish people who had come out to stand up for democracy on Friday”.
The purges against suspected Gulen supporters follow earlier aggressive moves by Erdogan’s administration against Gulen loyalists in the government, police and judiciary following corruption probes targeting Erdogan associates and family members in late 2013 prosecutions the government says were orchestrated by Gulen.
“It was certainly an expression of concern about this group and its presence in Canada, and an invitation for us to work with them on that”. And we just said ‘The ball is in your camp.
“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.
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He said the death toll had risen to 246 people excluding the coup plotters and that 2,185 people were wounded.
