Turkey - the country not the bird

Turkey coup attempt: Live updates - BBC News
More than 160 people are dead, 1,440 are wounded and some 2,800 soldiers are under arrest

Fetullah Gulen, who Turkey blames for the failed coup, lives in the US. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said any country that will "stand by" Mr Gulen "won't be a friend of Turkey and will be considered at war with Turkey".

What's now being reported is that Turkey is shutting off access to Incirlik - and so stopping the US jets conducting sorties against IS.
Messages for U.S. Citizens | Ankara, Turkey - Embassy of the United States
Be advised that local authorities are denying movements on to and off of Incirlik Air Base. The power there has also been cut. Please avoid the air base until normal operations have been restored.
 
This does seem to be a bit of a half-a**ed coup - or a false flag op. Coup rules are simple -
1) kill head of state (in this case Erdogan)
2)kill head of states aides
3)close down TV, Radio etc during coup
That's it.
 
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UK's The Guardians take on Gülen
Fethullah Gülen: who is the man Turkey's president blames for coup attempt?

PressTV-US offers help to probe Turkey coup bid
US Secretary of State John Kerry says Washington is ready to help Turkey investigate a failed coup, inviting Ankara to share any evidence it has against US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Kerry, who is in Luxembourg, said Saturday that the US had not yet received a formal extradition request for Gulen, who is now being blamed for Friday night’s coup attempt.

Ankara said on Saturday that followers of Gulen were behind the failed coup launched by a faction of the military which used tanks and attack helicopters in an attempt to seize power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

“We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr. Gulen,” Kerry said.

Some background on the Gülen movement the Fethullahists from 2009
Fethullah Gülen's Grand Ambition: Turkey's Islamist Danger :: Middle …
(Rumors of Saudi money/backing)
 
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Turkish military helicopter lands in Greece, 8 claim asylum
A Turkish Blackhawk military helicopter with eight passengers on board landed in Alexandroupolis, Greece midday on Saturday, Greek officials confirmed.

“They are military officers up to the level of major,” a senior Greek official was reported as saying.

Turkey’s Dogan news agency is reporting that the soldiers include two majors, a captain, and five privates. Greek officials have said that the passengers were seven soldiers and one civilian.

All eight men on board the helicopter were arrested by Greek police on charges of entering the country illegally.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu asked Greece to extradite the eight soldiers but they have requested asylum and their claims are being processed under international law.
 
Yeah, you can n't have a good old fashioned purge without the death penalty. :(

French FM questions Turkey’s reliability in ISIS war

In the wake of an failed coup to oust the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, France’s foreign minister has raised questions about Turkey’s reliability as a partner in the coalition fighting the Islamic State.

“There are questions that are being asked and we will ask them. It [Turkey] is partly viable, but there are suspicions as well. Let’s be honest about this,” said Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking to France 3 television.

Ayrault described Turkey as an ally with a strategic role based on its border with Syria, but added he would raise his concerns at a meeting of the anti-ISIS coalition in Washington next week.
 
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Turkish claims about US support to failed coup “harmful”, says Kerry

Kerry hints that Turkey could lose its NATO membership


US Secretary of State John Kerry hinted on Monday that Turkey may lose its membership in the NATO alliance if it continues its current crackdown against the military following a coup attempt on Friday.

"NATO also has a requirement with respect to democracy,” Kerry told reporters.

“A lot of people have been arrested and arrested very quickly,” he said, “the level of vigilance and scrutiny is obviously going to be significant in the days ahead.”

“We must be vigilant that Turkish authorities don’t put in place a political system which turns against democracy,” he insisted.

Kerry said that Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had assured him that his government will respect the country’s democracy; Kerry said NATO will “measure” Turkey’s conduct.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even said on Sunday that the Turkish parliament should reconsider its abolition of the death penalty in light of the coup attempt.

He also said the coup attempt was a “gift from God because this will be a reason to cleanse our army.”

A senior Turkish official told Reuters that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg telephoned Erdogan and told him that he supports the Turkish government saying that NATO cannot tolerate military coups in member states.

Following a failed military coup in Turkey last Friday night the Turkish government detailed 6,000 people, 3,000 of whom are judges and legal officers who may not have had anything to do with that failed coup attempt.
 
PressTV-Why did Turkey coup d’état fail?
... the plotters seemed to be following a checklist from a very outdated version of Coup d'etat for Dummies – and very incompetently too.
According to claims by some of the soldiers who were detained following the turmoil, they were told by commanders they were part of a military drill, and they only understood that it was an attempted coup when they faced popular resistance. Moreover, as much as he insists on the role of erstwhile ally Fethullah Gulen – living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania – Erdogan has not provided any solid evidence proving his involvement.

Nobody still knows for sure who the brain behind the bungled attempt was, or even whether it was staged by Erdogan or by a cleric from the United States.
 
Things are looking pretty grim - Erdogan appears to be purging everyone who might disagree with him.
 
Turkey coup: Purge widens to education sector - BBC News
More than 15,000 education staff in Turkey have been suspended after last week's failed coup, as a purge of state officials widens still further.

The ministry of education accused them of links to Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric the Turkish government says was behind Friday's uprising.

Mr Gulen denies any involvement.

More than 1,500 university deans have also been ordered to resign and the licences of 21,000 teachers working at private institutions revoked.

The army, judiciary, security and civil service have all been targeted following Friday's coup attempt:

  • 6,000 military personnel have been arrested, with more than two dozen generals awaiting trial
  • Nearly 9,000 police officers have been sacked
  • Close to 3,000 judges have been suspended
  • Some 1,500 employees of Turkey's finance ministry have been dismissed
  • 492 have been fired from the Religious Affairs Directorate
  • More than 250 staff in Mr Yildirim's office have been removed
Turkey's media regulation body on Tuesday also revoked the licenses of 24 radio and TV channels accused of links to Mr Gulen.

The country's Religious Affairs Directorate has banned religious funerals for supporters of the attempted coup, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Meanwhile it has emerged that the army first received intelligence a coup was under way at 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Friday, hours before a rogue faction deployed tanks and targeted key infrastructure.
(So why was nothing done? Maybe someone wanted the coup attempt to happen.)
 
Turkey coup attempt: Charges laid against 99 generals and admirals - BBC News
Turkey has formally charged 99 generals and admirals in connection with the weekend's thwarted coup attempt, just under a third of the country's 356 top military officers.

Authorities have banned all academics from travelling abroad, as the purge of state employees suspected of being connected to the failed coup continues.

More than 50,000 people have been rounded up, sacked or suspended.
 
Turkey coup attempt: State of emergency announced - BBC News
Turkey's president has declared a state of emergency for three months following Friday night's failed army coup.

Speaking at the presidential palace in Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that "all the viruses within the armed forces will be cleansed".

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier responded to Mr Erdogan's speech by urging the Turkish government to maintain both the rule of law and a sense of proportionality in its response to the coup attempt.

"Only provable involvement in illegal acts, not suspected political leanings, should trigger governmental action," Mr Steinmeier said.

"It's also critical that the declaration of emergency be the truly necessary length of time, and to end the measure as quickly as possible."
 
Turkey: Coup plotters 'acted early' in fear of arrests
The faction in the Turkish army that tried to stage a coup was under investigation before the actual incident took place, and most likely acted out of a growing fear that it was under investigation, according to two Turkish officials.
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According to Kani Torun, an MP with Turkey's Justice and Development Party, an investigation into the faction was initiated as a follow-up to so-called espionage and sledgehammer cases, during which hundreds of military personnel were acquitted after standing trial for plotting against the government.

During both cases, tried army members were known to point at Gulen supporters within the army and the wider state institutions, including the judiciary.

"The putschists were to be called by prosecutors and arrested by the courts a short time before they carried out their attempted coup," Torun told Al Jazeera.

"We believe they moved their attempt to an unusual time such as 10pm in the evening after they heard about this upcoming development. If they carried it out in the morning as planned, they would have had more chance of success."
 
More info on coup and state of affairs in Turkey - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/world/middleeast/failed-turkish-coup-accelerated-a-purge-years-in-the-making.html
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Many have wondered how the government could so quickly identify so many thought to be traitors. The answer, Turkish officials say, is that they had been preparing for this for years.

Government officials have been candid on that point, saying that before the attempted coup, they were already compiling lists of military officers and other officials who were suspected of loyalty to Mr. Gulen.

But since the government officials did not have sufficient evidence to convict them in court, they planned to sideline them over time, Mr. Simsek, the deputy prime minister, told reporters on Thursday.

“We knew a lot, but either we didn’t have enough legal basis or the time” to remove the Gulenists from government, he said.

“We are not making up these stories; this is not some Jason Bourne trilogy,” Mr. Simsek added. “We have these massive cells, networks, and they have a bank. They have massive financial resources.”

Those efforts got a boost this year, when Turkey’s intelligence service captured a secret communications channel used by Mr. Gulen’s followers, revealing tens of thousands of names and identification numbers, according to the Turkish security official who was inside the government compound in Ankara when it was attacked.
 
'Turkish Airlines fires personnel after failed coup'
Turkey's state-run Turkish Airlines fired more than 100 employees, including management and cabin crew, as part of a purge at state institutions to root out supporters of an abortive coup, Turkish media reported on Monday.

The dismissals at the national carrier occurred late on Sunday after it was determined the employees were linked to a religious movement President Tayyip Erdogan has said attempted to overthrow the government on July 15, Sabah newspaper said.

Other reports said the dismissals were due to "inefficiency." Thelira.com, a financial-news website, said about 250 cabin crew were dismissed, along with 100 management and administrative staff.

Aviation news site Airporthaber.com said that among those let go was a deputy chief executive responsible for the airline's financial affairs.