Troops
try to seize power in Turkey
President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rejects coup and urges people to take to the
streets.
By ROY GUTMAN
7/15/16, 10:55 PM CET Updated 7/16/16, 6:25 AM CET
ISTANBUL — A
faction in the Turkish military Friday night declared it had staged a
coup and seized “full control” of this country of nearly 80
million, in a bid that media reports said had killed at least 60.
However, within
hours government officials said that the attempt to seize the country
had failed.
The coup-backers
sent tanks to shut down the main bridges over the Bosphorus strait,
closed Istanbul’s main airport, took over the state television and
declared a curfew.
By Saturday morning,
the soldiers on the Bosphorus bridge had surrendered and the airport
was back under government control.
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan early Saturday had urged the public to take to
the streets and defeat an attempt by “a minority” of the Turkish
military to take power. He was unable to speak on the state
television, which was under control of the military, and instead had
communicate over FaceTime to CNN Turk, a news channel. “They will
pay the price, the highest cost at the end,” Erdoğan said.
The station was
later taken over by the military.
The attempted
military putsch in this critical NATO ally follows years of tension
between Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, which has its
roots in political Islam and came to power 14 years ago, and the
military — which has been the guardian of the country’s secular
tradition dating back to the foundation of the Turkish republic.
In more recent
years, Erdoğan, a divisive figure, has accrued greater personal
power and become more authoritarian. Over the same period, the
country has suffered from a wave of terrorist attacks attributed to
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and a renewal of fighting in
Kurdish areas.
In what it called
“public statement number one,” the coup organizers declared that
the aim of the uprising was to restore democracy in Turkey.
“The Turkish Armed
Forces, in order to reestablish constitutional order, democracy,
rights and freedoms, rule of law, safety and security of the Turkish
nation and the state, has taken over all governmental
responsibilities of the Republic of Turkey … All of our
international commitments and agreements are in place. We hope to
continue our good and friendly relations with all countries in the
world.”
In a second
statement issued early Saturday, the coup organizers reaffirmed that
a nationwide curfew was in effect, directly contradicting Erdoğan’s
call for the public to take to the streets.
The group called
itself the “Peace at Home Council,” using a phrase that the
founder of the modern republic, Kemal Atatürk, made the watchword
for the country’s foreign policy —“Peace at home, peace in the
world.” It accused Erdoğan of destroying the constitutional order
and the secular democratic state.
“Curfew has been
declared all over Turkey until security can be maintained,” the
statement said in an unofficial translation. “The Peace at Home
Council makes this statement due to the systematic violations of the
constitution and a serious threat to the fundamental nature of the
state. All state institutions including the Turkish Armed Forces are
being diverted by ideological aims, and therefore were unable to
fulfill their functions.”
It added:
“Fundamental rights and freedoms have been damaged by the president
and his government, and the secular and democratic state of law based
on a separation of powers have been de facto eliminated. Our state
has lost its prestige in the international arena, universal human
rights are being disregarded, and our country has become an autocracy
based on fear.”
Erdoğan was on
vacation on the Aegean coast but quickly flew to Istanbul, landing at
the city’s Ataturk airport in the middle of the night, a government
spokesman said.
Speaking over
FaceTime, the president said, “We will overcome this. I urge the
Turkish people to gather at public squares and airports. … There is
no power higher than the power of the people.”
In response, large
groups of his supporters gathered in Istanbul and Ankara.
Amid reports that
the chief of staff of the Turkish military was being held at gunpoint
by the coup organizers in Ankara, gunfire has been heard in what some
government officials described as fighting between the Turkish
military and the police. Later a government spokesman said the chief
of staff was again performing his duties.
Gunshots were heard
in the capital Ankara and military planes flew low overhead. A bomb
hit the Turkish parliament, the Andolu Agency reported. In another
report from NTV, a Turkish fighter jet shot down a helicopter used by
coup plotters over Ankara.
There also were
reports of gunfire in one central district of Istanbul, Turkey’s
largest city. But in Beyoglu, Istanbul’s business district, the
main streets were quiet, and there was no sign of military or police
personnel, even at a principal administrative headquarters of the
state television.
Early in the
morning, imams at the country’s mosques sounded a call to prayer.
Shortly after 3
a.m., fighter planes started criss-crossing the skies of central
Istanbul, several of them breaking the sound barrier.
Erdoğan blamed the
uprising on Fetulleh Gulen, a retired Islamic cleric and former
political ally, who once had a sizeable following in the Turkish
police, judiciary and military. The president had been due to hold a
meeting of the High Military Council, a body overseeing the military,
and there were reports he was planning oust anyone still linked with
Gulen.
Gulen now lives in
exile in Pennsylvania, and Erdoğan has tried, thus far
unsuccessfully, to obtain his extradition to face charges of
supporting terrorism.
The first
confirmation that a coup was under way came from Prime Minister
Binali Yıldırım. “It is correct that there was an attempt,”
he said. But he said the operation could not succeed, and later said
that the situation in the country was back under control. He said
that 130 soldiers had been arrested as of early Saturday.
Another official
spokesman predicted that the government would restore all control by
morning.
U.S. President
Barack Obama called on all parties to “support the democratically
elected government of Turkey” and to “show restraint, and avoid
any violence or bloodshed.”
Federica Mogherini,
the EU’s foreign policy chief, called for “restraint and respect
for democratic institutions” in Turkey.
Paul Dallison
contributed to this article.
The article has been
updated with government claims that the coup has failed.
Authors:
Roy Gutman
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