At least 20,000 people rallied there to show their support for Erdogan after last month’s failed military coup.
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Turkey meanwhile issued arrest warrants for about 100 staff, including doctors, at Ankara’s main military hospital, and even fired football referees in a new phase of the crackdown after the failed coup that has seen some 18,000 detained and caused worldwide consternation.
The president slipped away before the commandos’ helicopters arrived, however, in one of the most dramatic events in a long night of violence that ultimately failed to topple the government but that left more than 250 people dead.
Turkey has demanded the extradition of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government says instigated the coup, but Washington has asked for evidence of the cleric’s involvement, saying the extradition process must take its course.
The United States’ top military official, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, was due to meet Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Ankara on Monday after visiting the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, used by the US -led coalition for bombing raids in Syria.
“They are not coming after the images revealed tanks were deployed on the streets, parliament was bombed”, Tufenkci said, pointing out that some foreign orders had been cancelled in the wake of the coup.
Presidential sources, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media, said the letters signed by the presidential secretary general, Fahri Kasirga, were sent to the respective secretaries general of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party chairman, Binali Yildirim, as well as Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahceli. “Those we considered friends are siding with coup-plotters and terrorists”.
Turkey admitted yesterday there may have been some “unfair” treatment in its post-coup crackdown as it voiced anger with Germany for barring President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from addressing a rally in Cologne. A message from Erdogan was read out instead.
Germany has an estimated three million residents of Turkish origin.
Echoing Yildirim’s tone, deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said: “If there are any mistakes, we will correct them”.
Kurtulmus said German courts normally address cases very slowly, “yet the German Constitutional Court prohibited our president addressing the rally via teleconference in less than 24 hours”.
German officials insist there was no wrongdoing.
The tension comes as ties between Germany and Turkey were already strained over the German parliament’s decision to brand as genocide the World War I-era Armenian massacre by Ottoman forces.
Since the coup bid, more than 60,000 people in the military, judiciary, civil service and education have been detained, suspended or placed under investigation, leading to concern among North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies about the scale of the purges.
The official said staff there were suspected of helping fast-track Gulen supporters into the military by giving them favourable medical reports.
Erdogan was staying in the western seaside resort of Marmaris on July 15 but dashed to Istanbul just before the hotel came under attack from rebel soldiers determined to oust him from power.
Since the failed coup attempt Erdogan has imposed a state of emergency and launched a sweeping crackdown on those believed to be against him. Nearly half of Turkey’s generals were fired in the wake of the coup.
Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said he will not bow to “intimidation” from Turkey after receiving online death threats as tensions rise between the European Union and Ankara, in comments published on August 2.
“Citizens who don’t have any relationship with this organization have nothing to worry about, they should rest easy nothing will happen to you, but those who do should fear”. “Sorry, but everything has a price”. Turkey joined North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1952 along with rival Greece in the alliance’s first expansion since it was founded three years earlier. Its Incerlik air base hosts approximately 2,000 USA personnel deployed in the fight against Islamic State.
In his remarks, the president said the failed coup was not masterminded and planned inside Turkey but orchestrated overseas.
What is Turkey’s role in the region?
Turkey, the second largest military in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation after the United States, is vital in anti-IS efforts thanks to its long border with Syria, although Ankara has been more focussed on defeating President Bashar al-Assad’s government than the religious fighters.
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As the United States sought to limit the fallout from a purge of Turkey’s military on Monday, security experts warned of troubles in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance, the battle against the Islamic State (IS) group and refugee flows into Europe. Is the West standing by democracy or by coups and terror?
