The regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan forcefully closed 45 newspapers, 16 television news stations, 23 radio stations, three news agencies and 15 magazines, news reports said.
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Turkey has begun overhauling its armed forces following a failed coup, but its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States complained that the purges of generals and officers were hindering cooperation in the fight against Islamic State.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said the YAS decisions – which Erdogan must first approve – would be announced on Thursday evening and would come into force immediately.
Also to be shut are the Zaman newspaper and its Today’s Zaman English language sister publication which, like Cihan, were part of a holding linked to Gulen until being put into state administration earlier this year.
Arrest warrants were issued for 89 journalists and dozens of media organizations were ordered shuttered.
Ban recognized “the extraordinary circumstances prevailing in the country following the coup attempt”, but “expressed his expectation that Turkey adhere to its global human rights obligations, upholding fundamental rights and universal principles”, the statement said.
In an interview with CNN Turk television Thursday, Cavusoglu criticized Germany’s slow response to Ankara’s request for the extradition of several alleged members of the Gulen movement. The president and his supporters have accused Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, of orchestrating the coup, which saw more than 200 people killed.
The foreign minister said anti-U.S. sentiment in Turkey was on the rise and a refusal to extradite Gulen would harm relations.
Separately, Turkey’s capital markets board said it had revoked the license of the head of research at brokerage AK Investment and called for him to face charges over a report he wrote to investors analyzing the coup.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was “right and important” for Turkey to pursue the coup plotters. “And my concern arises from the fact (authorities) are moving very hard and this principle of proportionality is perhaps not always at the center”.
Yildirim, accompanied by the top brass, visited the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founder, before the council meeting, and vowed to overcome all terror threats.
In a symbol of the military’s waning power in Turkey after the coup, the meeting will be symbolically held at the Cankaya Palace of the Turkish premier in Ankara and not, as is customary, at military headquarters.
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Changes since the coup include bringing the gendarmerie, which is responsible for security in rural areas, and the coast guard firmly under interior ministry control rather than under General Staff control.
