Erdogan: Turkey coup could make for full scale Islamisation

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160804/1043918063/ankara-washington-relations.html
Ankara and Washington: Temporary Chill or Bridges Burned Down? © AFP 2016/ Yasin Bulbul / POOL
POLITICS
03:31 04.08.2016

On Monday, Washington’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford met with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. Radio Sputnik discussed the rendezvous with Turkish journalist Kemal Okuyan: are Washington and Ankara making first steps to restore ties following the failed coup in Turkey?

The high-profile meeting came as tensions simmer in bilateral relations between the West and Turkey, Okuyan explained to Loud & Clear host Brian Becker.

First, he stressed, the West is concerned about Turkey turning away, and towards Russia, following the attempted putsch in the country, which many Turks believe was orchestrated by the US.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (File)
© AFP 2016/ STR / TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE
Erdogan Wants to 'Smash NATO Secret Army' Allegedly Involved in Attempted Coup
Second, the situation in Syria is deteriorating for NATO, and Turkey, as a member of the bloc, is a key player in the region that could help reverse that trend for the West. Gaps  in NATO policies in Syria are becoming more obvious, Okuyan said, adding that “they have lost initiatives.”
Finally, Erdogan is very inconvenient for the West, as he’s unpredictable. “Erdogan has completely lost control” of the situation in his country and on the international arena, the journalist explained. “This cannot go on like that. Erdogan is a real problem for the US because he’s not easy to control.”

Turkish Liras, Euros and U.S. Dollars are stacked at a currency exchange office in Istanbul, Turkey (File)
© AP PHOTO/ EMRAH GUREL
From Flying to Flagging: Economic Troubles Force Turkey Into Compliance
“The negotiations are trying to wear a friendly mood. Nobody tries to be hard on the other side,” Okuyan said of Turkish officials’ position in many areas of international affairs. “But media is not like that. In media there’re lots of stories that leaders of the coup have connections with the US, Britain. Some officials like the mayor of Ankara directly accuse the US of orchestrating the coup.”
There’s certain belief among the Turkish public that the coup was facilitated from the West, as the four previous uprisings in the country were somehow linked to American authorities, Okuyan pointed out. Erdogan is trying to manipulate this attempt, he added.

“Erdogan has some real evidence about involvement of high level bureaucrats in the US or other NATO countries in the coup. The aim is to compromise each other. This is real bargaining but it might get out of control.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ali Yazici
© AFP 2016/ ADEM ALTAN
No Wonder Ankara’s Mad: Failed Turkish Coup Costs Country Big
At the same time, though, Ankara is unlikely to leave NATO following the coup, because the stability of the Turkish economy and subsequent well-being of the country’s population are “based on relations with the West.” Despite Turkey importing a lot of its energy from Russia, he stressed, main trade ties are those with the West, Germany and the US in particular.
“People know how the US and the West exist in Turkey. So any change in this will mean that there will be some economic problems. And people that support Erdogan are doing that not only because he’s a religious man. Most of supporters are getting some part of the paradise that created rich new bourgeois class.”

The coup has also buried the Turkish dream to join the EU, the journalist outlined.

“The illusion about the EU has collapsed. In every mean: economically, related to freedoms. People lost interest plus everybody knows there will be no real membership.”

Policemen stand on a military vehicle after troops involved in the coup surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016.
© REUTERS/ MURAD SEZER
CIA Behind Failed Coup Attempt in Turkey - Ex-Turkish Chief of Staff
To add insult to injury, the strife over Fetullah Gulen, the exiled Turkish cleric believed by many authorities in Ankara to have been involved in the coup attempt, will continue to impede the reconciliation process between the West and Turkey. And despite a lack of evidence, Okuyan thinks that the links between the cleric and coup leaders is obvious.
“The relation of the coup with Gulen is obvious, and he lives in the US. He had a great time with Hillary Clinton, getting financing and support from her. He has close ties with the CIA. It’s impossible that the old religious leader wakes up and says and I will try to have a military coup in Turkey. This is ridiculous.”

http://israelnonstop.com/black-day-17-turkish-journalists-arrested-as-terrorists/
BLACK DAY: 17 Turkish journalists arrested ‘as terrorists’
Posted by: See original author below  in Israel & the Region
Another dramatic move of Turkey to becoming a dictatorship after Erdogan’s fake coup. State-run news agency says those charged have been remanded in custody after hearings at Istanbul court

 Chris Johnston,  Josy Forsdike –  The Guardian
Saturday 30 July 2016 
 Nazlı Ilıcak
The veteran journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, 72, is among those detained. Photographs: Ihlas News Agency/AFP/Getty Images
 A court in Istanbul has remanded 17 Turkish journalists in custody as international concern mounts over the government’s targeting of reporters.
Twenty-one journalists appeared before a judge in hearings that lasted until midnight on Friday. Four were freed but 17 have been charged with membership of a terror group, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Arrest warrants were issued this week for 89 journalists, at least 40 of whom have now been detained. The Turkish government has used a state of emergency law to order the closure of at least 131 newspapers, television and radio stations, publishers and news agencies.
Some of those arrested used to work for the Zaman newspaper, which had close links with the Hizmet movement of the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Gülen of helping to organise the coup. Zaman was taken over by government-appointed trustees in March and is now strongly pro-Erdoğan.
Mahir Zeynalov, a Washington-based correspondent for Today’s Zaman, the English language version of the newspaper, has tweeted a series of images of Turkish journalists being arrested on Friday.
The prominent commentator Bülent Mumay was one of those freed after appearing in court. He was later given a rapturous welcome by supporters.
Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The government crackdown is on media outlets and journalists it accuses of being linked to the Fethullah Gülen movement, which it blames for the foiled military coup.
“In the absence of any evidence of their role or participation in the violent attempt to overthrow the government, we strongly condemn this accelerated assault on the media, which further undermines Turkey’s democratic credentials.”
Amnesty International also condemned the arrests. Its deputy Europe director, Fotis Filippou, said: “Rounding up journalists and shutting down media houses is the latest assault on a media already weakened by years of government repression … the authorities are intent on silencing criticism without regard to international law.”

Busra Erdal. ***LOOK at the policewoman to the left. Almost crying…. Veteran court reporter. Revered & reviled, made enemies because she never stopped writing. Arrested.
Ali Bulac. A powerful mind, one of Turkey’s rare Islamist sociologists. Refused to bow to Erdogan. Arrested.
Ahmet T. Alkan. He made his point through satire. Was a marvelous novelist. Now with head held high, going to jail.
Sahin Alpay. I don’t know anyone else who fought for Turkish democracy more than him. A champion of rights. Arrested
Mehmet Gundem. Hardly anyone could get away when he asked questions. An interview geek. Arrested.
Cihan Acar. Colleagues called him “cemetery Cihan” for exceptional coverage of funerals, from Kurds to celebrities.
Yakup Cetin. We know his face because he was live on TV when a story broke out. As every great reporter, arrested.
Bayram Kaya. Made his career by digging into Turkey’s economic life. Now under arrest for excellent court reporting.
Hasim Soylemez. A general assignment investigative reporter who wrote about almost anything. Price: Arrested.
A talented journalist, unwavering editor. Published a series of court investigations. Now paying the price. Arrested
Emre Soncan. To learn anything about the military, he was the reporter to read. Extraordinary journalist. Arrested.
Ufuk Sanli. His Al Monitor columns shed light on Turkey’s economy. An avid reader, excellent reporter. Arrested.
Abdullah Kilic. Supreme irony that he made headlines for investigating 1960 military coup. Arrested on coup charges.
Ali Akkus. If Turkey has few excellent newsroom editors, he is among the top. Publisher of graft cases. Arrested.
Cemal Kalyoncu. He knew nothing in his life besides reporting and editing. Arrested because he did not bow to power.
View image on Twitter
Arda Akin. Known for columns that deeply disturbed the government. Roared when necessary, without fear. Arrested.
View image on Twitter
Bunyamin Koseli. We used to be roommates. An excellent mind, great investigative reporter. Jailed for doing his job.

17:00, 24 JUL 2016 UPDATED 07:16, 25 JUL 2016
Thousands of Turkey coup prisoners 'raped, starved and hogtied'
BY CHRIS HUGHES
Amnesty International says it has ‘credible evidence’ Turkish police are holding detainees, denying them food, water and medical treatment and in the worst cases some have been subjected to severe beatings and torture

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/thousands-turkey-coup-prisoners-raped-8485304
TwitterTurkish soldiers Captured Turkish soldiers
Turkish troops imprisoned after the failed military coup are being raped, starved and left without water for days, it is claimed.

Many of the 10,000 detainees are locked up in horses’ stables and sports halls - some hogtied in horrific stress positions, according to human rights campaigners.

Amnesty International has called for immediate access to prisoners after the coup a week ago which sparked a brutal crackdown and a three-month state of emergency.

More than 200 died in the uprising which aimed to topple dictatorial President Recep Erdogan - and 1,500 were injured.

Amnesty says it has ‘credible evidence’ Turkish police are holding detainees in stress positions for up to 48 hours, denying them food, water and medical treatment and in the worst cases some have been subjected to severe beatings and torture, including rape.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan
John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe director, said: “Reports of abuse including beatings and rape in detention are extremely alarming, especially given the scale of detentions that we have seen in the past week.

READ MORE
Fears Erdogan may use UK arms to crush Turkish coup rebels
“Despite chilling images and videos of torture that have been widely broadcast across the country, the government has remained conspicuously silent on the abuse. “

Amnesty spoke to lawyers, doctors and a person on duty in a detention facility about the conditions in which detainees were being held.

They heard alarming accounts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, particularly at the Ankara Police Headquarters sports hall, Ankara Başkent sports hall and the riding club stables there.
7MIN VIDEO ERDOGAN 

wo lawyers in Ankara working on behalf of detainees told Amnesty International that detainees said they witnessed senior military officers in detention being raped with a truncheon or finger by police officers.

A person on duty at the Ankara Police Headquarters sports hall saw a detainee with severe wounds consistent with having been beaten, including a large swelling on his head.

The detainee could not stand up or focus his eyes and he eventually lost consciousness.
While in some cases detainees were afforded limited medical assistance, police refused to allow this detainee essential medical treatment despite his severe injuries.

The interviewee heard one police doctor on duty say: “Let him die. We will say he came to us dead.”

The same interviewee said 650-800 soldiers were being held in the Ankara police headquarters sports hall - 300 of them with signs of having been beaten.

READ MORE
Turkish police arrest 60 children for TREASON after they were made to dress in camouflage and hold guns
Some detainees had visible bruises, cuts, or broken bones.

Around 40 were so badly injured they could not walk.

Two were unable to stand.

One woman who was also detained in a separate facility there had bruising on her face and torso.

http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/turkey-islamists-attack-churches-coup-frenzy
TURKEY: ISLAMISTS ATTACK CHURCHES IN COUP FRENZY
Largely unreported in the Western media is the group of Islamists who attacked churches in the Trabzon and Malatya provinces
.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s iron-fisted grip has strengthened in the country’s new post-coup reality. The man who is one of the world’s top supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas has now declared a state of emergency in Turkey.

His purges and detention of soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have now reached close to 50,000 in less than one week after the “surprise” coup.

Yet largely unreported in the Western media is the group of Islamists who attacked churches in the Trabzon and Malatya provinces in the frenzy of the coup.

With the coup in progress, mosques all across Turkey last Friday night repeatedly broadcast the adhan (the Islamic call to prayer) and the Islamic knell, rallying people to pour into the streets in support of the government.

Thousands of people heeded the call.

Shouting “Allahu akbar” (Allah is the greatest), a group of Islamists in Malatya stoned a Protestant church, breaking the buildings windows. Another group in Trabzon similarly attacked the Santa Maria church, breaking windows and using hammers to try to break down the door.

Less known is the similar calls by imams in mosques on many other occasions throughout the history of Turkey, which have also led to attacks against non-Muslims -- particularly Christians and Alevis.

Recent History

On February 5, 2006, Father Andrea Santoro, a 61-year-old Roman Catholic priest, was murdered in the Santa Maria Church in Trabzon. He was shot from behind while kneeling in prayer in the church. Witnesses heard the murderer, age 16, shouting "Allahu Akbar” while killing the priest.

On April 18, 2007, three Christian employees of a publishing house for bibles in Malatya were attacked. After being heavily tortured, their hands and feet were tied and their throats were cut by five Muslim assailants.

Churches and their tiny congregations all across Turkey are continuously exposed to attacks and discrimination including hate crimes, verbal assaults and lack of legal rights to establish places of worship, train religious leaders and share their faith.

 

Christian Extermination and Systematic Discrimination 

The province of Bursa– like other Anatolian areas – is today a Muslim metropolis with very little regard for Christian rights. But a hundred years ago, it had a vibrant Christian community.

Writing in his book “The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History,”[i] the scholar Raymond Kevorkian explains: “The city of Bursa had until 1915 an Armenian population of 11,500 … The city’s Armenians and Greeks represented more than one third of its population, which also included a large number of mucahirs who had recently come from the Balkans.”

During the 1915 genocide, Christians in Bursa were either murdered or deported from the city. (See a map of the Armenian genocide in Northwestern Anatolia here.)

This was followed by the 1923 forcible population exchange treaty between Greece and Turkey in which almost 200,000 Greek Orthodox Christians of Asia Minor were forcibly expelled from Turkey.

Today in Bursa, “The French Church – Cultural House” serves as a clear example of the severe and hostile discrimination to which churches and Christians are exposed all across Turkey.

The day a deal was made with the city to restore the church, Islamists made a threat to bomb the building.

Three deoninations are forced to use the church since it is the only active church building in Bursa. The Catholic community uses the building twice a month for their Sunday services while Orthodox Christians use it once.

Protestants in Bursa had started to meet in “home congregations” in the 1990s. They applied to state institutions in 1994 for a place of worship and worshiped in an apartment until 2004. Today, they hold their services at the church on Sundays while maintaining another apartment for additional services.

As the Protestant community has no legal status in Turkey, it does not even have the full right to establish and maintain places of worship.

In February, Christians were told by the municipality to empty the church. After a campaign was waged against the order on social media, the municipality stepped back, apparently delaying its decision.

To date, the future of the church remains uncertain.

Facing Extinction

Anatolia, the former heartland of Christianity with millions of followers, today has a very small, dwindling Christian minority. Many remnant churches are essentially left to decay. Others have been converted to mosques or appropriated for other uses, such as storehouses or stables.

As was the goal, the destruction of Christianity in Anatolia is almost complete.

William Reed is a human rights activist and a student of Turkish language and history.

https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/did-erdogan-stage-coup
DID ERDOGAN STAGE THE COUP?
Since the coup, Erdogan has launched a brutally efficient purge against his political enemies leading many to question the coup's bizarre events.
In the aftermath of the attempted coup in Turkey Friday night, thousands of teachers as well as police, military personnel, judges, governors and more have been dismissed.  The list includes:

21,000 private teachers have licenses removed
15,000 suspended from education ministry
8,000 police officers detained or suspended
6,000 soldiers detained
1,500 staff at Ministry of Finance dismissed
2,745 judges dismissed
1,577 deans - Education board demands resignation
492 sacked from Religious Affairs Directorate
399 from Ministry of Family and Social Policies stripped of responsibilities
257 fired from the prime minister’s office
100 intelligence officials sacked
47 district governors dismissed
30 provincial governors dismissed
20 news websites blocked
In addition, public sector employees have reportedly been forbidden from leaving the country.

The alacrity with which the above thousands  were either arrested or purged from their position, has led many to assume that Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan had prepared the lists before the coup.

The European Union commissioner in charge of Turkey’s bid, Johannes Hahn, to join the EU echoed these sentiments, saying, "It looks at least as if something has been prepared. The lists are available, which indicates it was prepared and to be used at a certain stage," Hahn said. "I'm very concerned. It is exactly what we feared."

Moreover, many dubious circumstances surrounding the coup have led others to question whether the coup was, in fact staged, to allow Erdogan to execute these purges and declare a state of emergency where authoritarian rule will be imposed on the country.

These circumstances include the fact that the coup’s plotters:

Failed to seize power

Neither Erdogan nor any members of the cabinet or high-ranking officials of Erdogan’s Islamist AK party were detained or killed.
Sent commandos to the hotel where Erdogan was staying after he had already left.
Erdogan’s $600 million presidential palace was not attacked or occupied.
Erdogan’s plane was not intercepted or shot down as he flew back to Istanbul, despite the fact that top generals in the Air Force were involved in the plot.
Coup plotters occupied Ataturk International Airport but left before Erdogan’s plane landed.
Attacked the parliament building, which was all but empty at the time.
 

Failed to seize control of media

After initially taking control of the state’s TRT station and CNN Turk, the plotters immediately relinquished control of these news outlets back to the government, which allowed Erdogan to leverage appeal to his followers to take to the streets in support of the government.
 

Whether the coup was staged or Erdogan received a tip-off about it, as other have suggested, he was able to bring the Islamist “street” out in force to support him. The fact that the Turkish public seems to be becoming increasingly radicalized is borne out by a recent poll taken in Turkey in May of this year.

According to a May poll of the Gezici Research Company, close to 1 in 5 people in Turkey (19.7 percent) support the Islamic State and over 23 percent have sympathy for it.

The poll, which was conducted face-to-face with 2,455 Turkish citizens in 24 cities,  also indicates that Turkish support for ISIS has increased 100 % in the last 2 years.

The owner of the research company that conducted the poll, Murat Gezici, explained the surprising results. “95 percent of Turkey’s population is Muslim. And a large majority of them are pious and conservative,” Gezici said.

“At the Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, a German tourist group was targeted. In Suruc, leftists were targeted. The attack at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport took place at its international terminal,” he added. “The conservatives in Turkey see that Muslims are not targeted in the attacks that are told by official sources to have been carried out by ISIS.”

Gezici also said that most Syrian asylum seekers in Turkey of which there are 2.7 million, are sympathizers of ISIS. “As opposed to what is thought,” Gezici said, “60 percent of the Syrian asylum seekers in Turkey have come to Turkey fleeing Syrian head of state Bashar al-Assad. And a large majority of this group sees ISIS as a savior; they have sympathy for it.”

In 2015, the Gezici Research Company was raided by government inspectors after releasing an opinion poll and its pollsters were detained after releasing results of an opinion poll showing that Turkey's ruling party would losing votes in an upcoming election.

"Police told our surveyors that they were not authorized for the field study. In reality, we have had all licenses for political, economic and market studies since 2011," said Gezici at the time.

Meanwhile, jihadi propaganda is becoming more and more common in the Turkish Islamist media. In just one example, Misvak, an Islamist “humor” magazine known to be close to the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), recently published a cartoon praising the Islamic State.

These current statistics as well as recent events challenge the myth that Turkey is a secular, democratic state worthy of Western support, NATO membership and an appropriate candidate for EU membership.

In truth, the history of Turkey is not foreign to Islamic State-like atrocities  and has witnessed tremendous persecution of religious minorities – including the Yazidis, Christians, Alevis, Jews and others. 

From the 1915 Armenian genocide, to the 1937 Dersim Alevi massacres, the 1955 anti-Greek pogroms in Istanbul, the 1978 massacre of Alevis in Maras and the 1980 massacre of Alevis in Corum, among others, many Turkish governments and a considerable part of the Turkish society have carried out brutal crimes against their minority citizens.

Religious violence is largely endemic to political Islam. Doubtlessly, the Islamic State is a huge threat to human rights and liberties worldwide, but Islamist crimes should not be restricted to this terror group only.

Analyzing the history of Islamist crimes against non-Muslims - both in Turkey and the rest of the Muslim world – as well as the Islamic doctrine of jihad would give us a better insight into why many Muslims can so easily feel sympathy for a horrific group like ISIS and why many pious Muslims can even see ISIS as a source of humor.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-coup-president-erdogan-islam-akp-government-a7142836.html
President Erdogan could be using the coup against him to turn Turkey towards full-scale Islamisation
The implementation of Mr Erdogan’s long-desired presidential system based on Islamic values is beginning to look inevitable, says Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn In Istanbul @indyworld Monday 18 July 2016481 comments
Turkish police arrest Turkish soldiers at Taksim Square in Istanbul on 16 July 2016 EPA
As crowds chant calls for the execution of those involved in the failed coup in Turkey, there are fears that this once-secular country is decisively turning the corner towards full scale Islamisation. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the attempted military takeover to justify a purge of state officials and army officers who do not give him total obedience, opening the door for him to establish an all-powerful presidency while seemingly Islamising Turkish society to a degree not seen since the fall of the Ottomans.

The purge continued at full throttle on Monday with the sacking of 8,000 police and 30 governors as well as 52 high ranking civil servants. This is in addition to 70 admirals and generals along with 3,000 soldiers and 2,700 members of the judiciary fired or detained since the coup failed on Saturday.

As pro-coup forces were rounded up over the weekend, there were parades of religious zealots in the streets chanting “Allahu Akbar” as giant speakers in Taksim Square in central Istanbul blasted out verses from the Koran. Appeals from Turkey’s 85,000 mosques played a significant role in mobilising popular protests in the hours after the coup began. In Gezi Park in Istanbul, the centre of secularist and liberal protests against Mr Erdogan’s authoritarian rule three years ago, was now filled with crowds loyal to the President. 

The increasingly Islamist mood is already influencing social mores in Istanbul. Selin Derya, 26, who works for a business head hunting company, says that since pro-Erdogan crowds flooded into city centre in the aftermath of the coup “I am frightened of going out wearing a dress that some bigot might think is too close fitting or does not like the fact that my skirt ends above the knee.” Another secular woman in Istanbul explained that she does not want to enter the city centre at the moment because she fears harassment by religious extremists.
There have been escalating signs of intolerance of secular lifestyles in recent years, including an attack in June by two dozen men on a music store in Istanbul where they beat up Radiohead fans whom they accused of drinking alcohol during the holy month of Ramadan. When protesters gathered to demonstrate against the attack, they were dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannon. 

The programme of Mr Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) since they won their first general election in 2002 has been to reverse the secularisation introduced by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the republic in 1923.  As the AKP has tightened its grip on power, it has chipped away at the secular institutions of the state and encouraged the Islamisation of education and social behaviour as well as seeking to cull non-Islamist officials and officers.

Mr Erdogan has said that he wants to see “the growth of a religious generation”, which would replace long-standing secular domination in Turkey. His foreign policy since the Arab Spring in 2011 has been to support the largely Sunni Arab uprising in Syria in alliance with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, though his efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad have so far failed. This strategy included tolerance for extreme Islamist jihadi movements such as Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, enabling them to establish networks of support inside Turkey. However, in the summer of 2015 the Turkish government agreed to let the US and four other states, including the UK, use Incirlik air base in south east Turkey for air strikes against Isis. Gunmen and bombers from the Islamist group attacked Ataturk Istanbul airport in June killing 42 people.

VIDEO
John Kerry: Turkey coup could threaten country's Nato membership
The failed coup will enable the implementation of Mr Erdogan’s long-desired presidential system based on Islamic values. It is unlikely to face much resistance now from people who do not want to be labelled as coup sympathisers. Not only are large numbers of soldiers and officials being arrested, but they are being publicly humiliated by being beaten, forced to strip to their underwear and lie crammed together on the floor of wherever they are being held. The commander of Incirlik air base, Gen Bekir Ercan Van, was shown on film handcuffed and being bundled into the back of a van. 

Mr Erdogan is likely to find it easier to create an executive presidency, with all power concentrated in his hands, given that his victorious aura, following the failure of the coup, has enhanced his popular support. Though Turks are deeply divided between his supporters and opponents, few want to see him replaced by a military junta. “He expanded his political base by increased nationalist support after he abandoned peace process with the Kurds after the 7 June general election last year,” said a political observer. “he has even more support now.”

READ MORE
Turkish rebel jets had Erdogan's plane in sights but did not fire
US and EU officials have called on Turkey's government to respect the rule of law amid the purge of state institutions in the wake of the attempted coup.

As regards the coup plotters, it looks likely that only the movement led by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen would have had the connections within the Turkish armed forces to organise such a widespread conspiracy – although Mr Gulen and his supporters have denied any involvement. This coup may not have been as big as the Government now says it was in order to justify its crack down on all its opponents, but it was still impressively large and was not far from succeeding from seizing power for a few hours on 15 July. 

An explanation may be that the Gulenists, when closely allied to Mr Erdogan and the AKP between 2006 and 2012, played a leading role in helping him defang the armed forces. They ruthlessly led a witch hunt inside the army with hundreds of officers removed or arrested accused of plotting a coup which probably never existed. The Gulenists appear to have used the opportunity to replace the ousted officers with their own sympathisers who were activated last Friday night to launch a coup of their own.