Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘Turkish armed forces must be cleansed’
The
Turkish president says, ‘I am not going anywhere.’
By ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
AND CARMEN PAUN 7/16/16, 4:05 AM CET
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan flew to Istanbul in the midst of an attempted
military coup and issued a defiant statement early Saturday,
promising the armed forces would be “cleansed,” saying the coup
had failed and that many perpetrators had already been arrested.
Late Friday,
elements of the Turkish military claimed they had taken control of
the country, sending tanks into the streets of Istanbul and the
capital Ankara, imposing a curfew and closing the main airports.
Erdoğan called the
attempted coup an “act of treason,” for which the perpetrators
would “pay heavily.” He said said the military was preventing
planes from landing at the airport.
The Turkish
president addressed those taking part in the coup directly: “It is
definitely not possible for us to accept guns being pointed at your
fellow brothers and sisters, your children, your parents, mothers and
fathers. If you do that, you will pay a heavy price.”
Erdoğan denied
rumors that he was seeking asylum abroad, saying: “I am not going
anywhere … We will never hand our countries to those intruders.”
Authors:
Zoya Sheftalovich
and Carmen Paun
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