More than 1500 university deans have also been ordered to resign and the licences of 21,000 teachers working at private institutions revoked. The Directorate of Religious Affairs announced it has sacked 492 staff including clerics, preachers and religious teachers.
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Vowing to crush those allegedly behind the military putsch, authorities have detained more than 6,000 soldiers and suspended around 9,000 police officers, according to government and media reports.
The government says a U.S.-based Muslim cleric was behind the coup.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus declined to provide any details from the files, but said they contained information on past activities by the Gulen-led Hizmet movement.
The National Education Ministry said Tuesday that the staffers were in both urban and rural establishments, and that an investigation was launched against them, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“We would be disappointed if our [American] friends told us to present proof even though members of the assassin organization are trying to destroy an elected government under the directions of that person”, Yildirim said.
On Monday former air force chief General Akin Ozturk appeared in court, looking haggard and with an ear bandaged, and denied leading the failed coup.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also hinted that Turkey might bring back capital punishment to punish those responsible for the coup, a move strictly criticized by the European Union, which excludes the death penalty in its charter.
Erdogan has said he wants to “cleanse” all state offices of people linked to the uprising.
He told USA broadcaster CNN that he narrowly escaped death after coup plotters stormed the resort town of Marmaris where he was vacationing. Turkish officials on Saturday asked the USA to extradited Gulen, but State Department officials have said that the U.S. has not received an official extradition oder.
“We have a very strict set of requirements that have to be met for an extradition to take place”, he added.
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Days after a failed coup attempt in Turkey, the country’s jets carried out cross-border strikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, killing some 20 alleged militants, state media reported Wednesday.
