ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey will be able to extend detention times for suspects and issue decrees without parliamentary approval under a three-month state of emergency approved Thursday by lawmakers following last week’s attempted military coup.
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He was referring to what the government has long claimed is a state within a state controlled by followers of Gulen.
He made the announcement in a live television broadcast in front of government ministers after a meeting of the National Security Council that lasted almost five hours on Wednesday.
“We can not afford to be complacent”, he said in an interview with Reuters.
“The developments unfolded in Turkey was a coup attempt be a group of plotters in the military, linked to the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation (FETO), to overthrow the democratically-elected government and the constitutional order in Turkey”, ambassador Reha Keskintepe said.
“I condemn and reject in the strongest terms the attempted coup”, Gulen said in an interview Monday with USA TODAY and several other reporters.
Reports vary, but the crackdown in Turkey appears to be widespread across professional fields, as the government seeks to root out opposition and more fully determine the perpetrators of last weekend’s coup attempt. Kerry said he had not yet seen the documents and other US officials have not yet said whether they constitute a formal extradition request.
The state of emergency will come into force after it is published in Turkey’s official journal, Resmi Gazete, Reuters reported. Erdogan also says the main target will be what he calls the “cancerous” opposition of the US -based cleric Fetullah Gulen, accused of being behind the coup attempt.
Turkey has launched a massive post-coup purge. Rights and freedoms in the country may also be limited or suspended if the government decides to do so, the news agency explained.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr Yildirim said the Justice Ministry had sent a dossier to Washington on Mr Gulen, a former Erdogan ally whose religious movement blends conservative Islamic values with a pro-Western outlook and who has a network of supporters within Turkey.
Turkey had abolished the death penalty in 2004 in hopes of locking down its membership in the European Union.
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The pro-government death toll in the botched coup has been estimated at 246.
