Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who flew into Turkey after the reported coup, addressed a large crowd in Ankara Saturday morning, condemning the insurgents and saying his government was still in charge.
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“Let us gather in our squares, at our airports as the people and let that minority group come upon us with their tanks and artillery and do whatever they wish to do”, Erdogan said.
“Ataturk hope to re-commence global departures shortly, but until they do, all inbound flights to Ataturk are being diverted”, Eurocontrol said, although the “situation is unclear”.
“People in Turkey will need access to information and, if there is violence, access to emergency services – all of which depend on stable communications channels”, Access Now said in a statement.
About 50 soldiers involved in the coup surrendered on one of the bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul after dawn on Saturday, abandoning their tanks with their hands raised in the air. He claimed some in the military had been taking orders from the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, and that the attempted coup showed the Gulen was heading an armed terrorist organisation.
In a written statement on Saturday, Stoltenberg said he spoke to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Several military commanders and all four major political parties – including three in opposition – rejected the putsch, blaming a small group within the military.
By the early hours of Saturday, lawmakers were still hiding in shelters inside the parliament building in Ankara, which was being fired on by tanks.
New Yorkers with ties to Turkey marched through Midtown in protest of the attempted coup in that country.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation called for “full respect” for Turkey’s democratic institutions.
He later gave a brief statement on the doorstep of a hotel in Marmaris, Dogan news agency reported.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told state-run Turkish media that more than 120 people have been arrested in a coup plot. Cars are flowing from the European side of the city to the Asian, but soldiers and military vehicles are blocking the path to the European side. In his appearance on CNNTurk via a reporter’s mobile phone, Erdogan urged people to take to the streets to protect “democracy”.
USA expressed support for the elected Turkey government.
Jets and fighter planes could be seen flying over the cities of Ankara and Istanbul.
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Turkey Blocks, a Twitter account that regularly checks if sites are being blocked in the country, reported at 1:04 PM Pacific (11:04 PM Istanbul time) that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were all unresponsive, though Instagram and Vimeo remained available.
