The Interior Ministry said nearly 9,000 police and other officials were dismissed on suspicion of links to the coup bid by an army faction.
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The comments come in the wake of the President’s vow over the weekend that those responsible “will pay a heavy price for this act of treason”.
News of the firings and detentions came as the US and European Union urged the government to uphold democracy and human rights as it pursues the military officers and anyone else involved in the coup attempt.
In a sign of global concern, a German official said a serious fissure had opened in Turkey and he feared fighting would break out within Germany’s large Turkish community. A court remanded 26 generals and admirals in custody on Monday, Turkish media said.
“No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty”, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about suggestions that EU accession candidate Turkey might execute leaders of the failed coup.
He called on Turks to stay on the streets until Friday, and late into Sunday night his supporters thronged squares and streets, honking horns and waving flags.
“Starting from the moment we landed, F-16s started flying above us, very close to the ground”, Erdogan said.
Around 1,400 people were wounded as soldiers commandeered tanks, attack helicopters and warplanes, strafing parliament and the intelligence headquarters and trying to seize the main airport and bridges in Istanbul.
Throughout the ordeal it “never crossed my mind” that he would no longer be President, he said.
The Turkish Lira, which initially fell by almost 5%, has subsequently recovered much of its lost ground and has risen by 3% so far on Monday.
Erdogan rejected any claims that he would use the attempted coup, considered an act of terrorism by his government, as justification for a crackdown against his opponents.
“A government should not decide the hiring and firing”, he said.
He added that he has “no issues” when it comes to a free press.
They 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. Erdogan will need opposition support to pass such a measure. “We can not ignore this demand”, he told a chanting crowd outside his house in Istanbul late on Sunday.
“We were the first. during that tragic night to say that the legitimate institutions needed to be protected”, she told reporters at an European Union foreign ministers meeting, also attended by United States Secretary of State John Kerry.
This is the context for the recent Ergenekon and Balyoz trials, in which the government accused Turkish officers of plotting a series of coups and false-flag attacks created to overthrow the AKP regime-trials that decimated Turkey’s military ranks and that were also subsequently overturned when some of the convictions were found to be based on fabricated evidence.
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“There will be legal evidence collected in this investigation and we will present all of this to the Americans as part of our extradition request”, he said.
