On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said his talks with Russian officials this week on improving bilateral relations had taken place “in a very positive atmosphere”.
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“The Turkish contingent continues its mission”, a spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation force in Afghanistan said, without further comment.
In a separate development, police were searching a naval academy just outside Istanbul in a probe into coup plotters, reports said.
There are 8,651 military personnel who belong to the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETO) and were involved in the failed coup attempt, Turkish General Staff stated.
Police on Tuesday also detained two more journalists a day after authorities issued warrants for the detention of 42 journalists, many of them who had worked for Gulen-linked media.
At least one journalist, former Zaman columnist Sahin Alpay, was detained at his home early Wednesday, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The two generals were caught in Dubai, while the governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, who served from 2010-2014, was detained in Istanbul, an official at the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Kilicdaroglu said he backed the government’s efforts for Gulen’s extradition from the United States.
Gulen, who lives in the United States and runs a global network of schools and foundations, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the coup attempt.
In an apparent sign of Turkey’s post-coup diplomatic strategy, Erdogan will visit Russia on August 9 to fix ties harmed by the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkish jets previous year, officials said.
Albayrak, who was with Erdogan throughout the night of the botched putsch on July 15, said the president had first been warned about the coup by a civilian and it was only later that the gravity of the situation become clear.
However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed. The president, he said, is threatening to curb support for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State to pressure the USA into extraditing him, “despite a lack of credible evidence and virtually no prospect for a fair trial”.
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Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.
