Turkey has not compromised over its laws even after the July 15 coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday, APA reports quoting Anadolu Agency.
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“You are taking the side of coup plotters instead of thanking this state for defeating the coup attempt”, Erdogan said in angry remarks at a military centre in Golbasi outside Ankara, where air strikes left dozens dead during the coup.
But he also said he was dropping hundreds of lawsuits against individuals accused of insulting him in what he said was a gesture of goodwill.
Thousands of legal cases had been filed against those who had insulted the Turkish President on social media and other forums.
Erdogan, meanwhile, has said it was “shameful” that Western countries showed more interest in the fate of the plotters than in standing with a fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and has upbraided Western leaders for not visiting after the putsch.
“We will absolutely bring back that head of Fetullah Terrorist Organization, the (one) responsible for this coup who is now in the US”, Yildirim added in a reference to Fetullah Gulen, the Islamist cleric, who was an ally of the Islamist Turkish government until 2013, and then became one of its enemies.
Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania but whose movement has a wide following in Turkey where it runs a large network of schools, has denied any involvement in the failed putsch.
Turkey’s military is already stretched, given the violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast, and threats from Islamic State attacks on its border with Syria.
The president said the ruling government needs to listen to people’s demands for the death penalty and that the parliament will discuss the issue and everyone has to respect the final decision.
Turkey on Friday insisted its military will keep up the fight against Islamic State jihadists and other militants after the failed coup, saying the armed forces would emerge stronger from a purge of its top ranks.
“I am concerned about what the impact is on those relationships as we continue”, Votel said.
United States intelligence chiefs have warned purges in Turkey are harming the fight against ISIS, after Turkish President Erdogan jailed some of the country’s best officers.
Gulen denies any involvement in the coup and in an interview published on Friday said Erdogan had been “poisoned” by power.
Turkey’s government has repeatedly said the deadly coup attempt, which martyred more than 230 people and injured almost 2,200 others, was organized by USA -based preacher Fetullah Gulen’s followers and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).
In particular, Mr Votel reportedly suggested the United States had lost key Turkish military interlocutors who are now in jail and accused of being behind the coup.
Separately, security forces in the central industrialized city of Kayseri detained Mustafa Boydak, the chief executive officer of Turkish conglomerate Boydak Holding, as part of mass detentions after the failed coup.
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Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also said Turkey would shut down an air base in the outskirts of Ankara that the coup plotters used as their headquarters. It has also been seeking to extend its crackdown on the network of schools and institutions overseas connected to his movement.
