Military coup underway in Turkey: PM

“Turkey is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and remains a committed partner in the coalition against ISIL”, a spokesman for Kerry said.

That’s particularly the case, since Turkey is one of the world’s few Muslim majority democracies and it sits at a key crossroads between the West and the Middle East, with Turkey playing a critical role in the fight against ISIS in Syria, the handling of Syrian refugees and in serving as a transit point for foreign ISIS fighters.

Meanwhile, Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and a key partner in USA -led efforts to defeat the Islamic State group, has seen a wave of terrorist attacks that have crippled one if its biggest industries: tourism.

The United States and Turkey are close military allies within North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and USA war planes targeting the Islamic State group fly out of the major Incirlik air base.

If Incirlik remains closed for a extended period, U.S. manned and remotely piloted aircraft will be forced to make much longer flights to targets in northern Syria and Iraq from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and air bases in Qatar and Kuwait, U.S. defense officials said. Sorties from the base were suspended because airspace had been closed, U.S. officials said.

Erdogan has cooperated with Washington in the fight against Islamic State, but relations have been rocky with US officials criticizing his increasing authoritarianism, Turkey’s support for Islamist opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the slow pace in sealing Turkey’s border with Syria to foreign fighters. Insurgents dropped as many as four bombs on the the Turkish parliament and at one point took control of two bridges on Ankara´s perimeter. “Deliver this man who lives in Pennsylvania to Turkey”, said Erdogan.

“It’s important that the democratic principles to which President Erdogan and the legitimate Turkish government have referred to in recent hours are fulfilled”, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said in his denunciation of the coup plot.

Here is a look at what else this could mean for the U.S. During the coup attempt, Obama threw his support behind Turkey’s democratically-elected government and urged all parties to avoid any violence or bloodshed. Obama also underscored shared challenges such as counterterrorism “that will require continued Turkish cooperation”.

Turkey’s foreign minister said on Saturday he had made clear in a call with USA counterpart John Kerry that followers of US -based cleric Fethullah Gulen were behind a coup attempt, but had not directly discussed the cleric’s possible extradition. “The government enjoyed the support of the people who hit the streets and helped to stop this coup d’état”.

“The EU fully supports the democratically elected government”, an early overnight statement read, taking care to add it also backed “the institutions of the country and the rule of law” – a nuanced distinction from Erdogan’s personal power.

During the decades of the Cold War, the two countries enjoyed close relations, with the US successfully collaborating on a range of issues with both democratically and military-led governments headed by many pro-western secularists.

It has had tensions with Mr Erdogan’s AKP party over its political Islamism.

And Erdogan’s more anti-Western tone and authoritarian behavior – it now ranks behind Russia, Venezuela and Algeria in press freedom – has concerned the U.S. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country “stands at the side of all those in Turkey who defend democracy and the rule of law”, including Erdogan’s opponents.

Now there are fears that Erdogan could go much further.

The army’s top general and military chief of staff, Hulusi Akar, was reportedly taken hostage by the coup-plotters, and then released.

President Erdogan blamed a “parallel structure” for the coup attempt.