This attempted coup crumbled after crowds answered President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to take to the streets to support him and dozens of rebel soldiers abandoned their tanks in the main city of Istanbul. At least 161 people were killed in violence that erupted yesterday after a faction of the armed forces attempted to seize power.
Reports also have it that over 750 soldiers involved in the putsch have been arrested. A successful overthrow of President Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, would have marked one of the biggest shifts in the Middle East in years, transforming one of the most important US allies from a democracy to dictatorship while war rages on its border.
President Erdogan, who had been holidaying on the southwest coast when the coup was launched, flew into Istanbul before dawn on Saturday and was shown on TV among a crowd of supporters outside Ataturk Airport. He described the uprising as an act of treason, adding that those responsible would pay a heavy price.
According to President Erdogan, arrests of officers were under way and it would go higher up the ranks, culminating in the cleansing of the military. Addressing a crowd of thousands of flag-waving supporters at the airport later, President Erdogan said the government remained at the helm, although disturbances continued in Ankara.
Calling itself the Peace at Home Movement, the faction of the military that sought to seize power, had called on people to stay indoors for their own safety. As of this morning, the rebel soldiers who had taken control of military aircraft were still firing from the air and fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept them.
Around 50 soldiers involved in the coup surrendered on one of the bridges across the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, abandoning their tanks with their hands raised in the air. So far about 2,800 soldiers have been arrested by loyal forces with around 30 pro-coup soldiers surrendering their weapons after being surrounded by armed police in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square.
President Erdogan and other officials blamed the attempted coup on followers of Fethullah Gulen, an influential cleric in self-imposed exile in the US who once supported the president but became a nemesis. However, the pro-Gulen Alliance for Shared Values said it condemned any military intervention in domestic politics.
Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) member with the second biggest military in the Western alliance, is one of the most important allies of the US in the fight against the Islamic State militant group, which seized swaths of neighbouring Iraq and Syria.
European Council president Donald Tusk called for a swift return to Turkey’s constitutional order, saying tensions there could not be resolved by guns.
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