Erdogan targets more than 50000 in purge after failed Turkish coup

The United States will provide appropriate help to the Turkish government following Friday’s failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Obama told Erdogan in a call Tuesday.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the two leaders discussed the status of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan has accused of being behind the coup attempt and whose extradition Turkey has said it will seek.

Materials related to the extradition of the cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in the USA state of Pennsylvania were submitted to US authorities by the Turkish government in electronic form, according to Earnest.

Yildirim said he had dispatched several dossiers to the U.S requesting Gulen’s extradition after Kerry said the US would require evidence before considering sending Gulen back to Turkey.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has filed an extradition request for Gulen..

Thousands of Turkish police officers, soldiers and PKK militants have been killed over the past year, as Turkey’s security forces and rebels engaged in urban warfare in cities across the country’s southeast.

“A government should not decide the hiring and firing”, he said. The government says a USA -based Muslim cleric was behind the coup.

Turkey widened its massive post-coup purge to the state education sector on Tuesday after vowing to root out supporters of an exiled cleric it accuses of orchestrating the attempted power grab.

Ozturk has denied the allegation, saying he neither planned nor directed the coup, according to the Anadolu Agency.

“Those are the values that the Turkish people were defending in repelling the coup”, Earnest said. Erdogan refused to elaborate on the objective of Wednesday’s announcement, which a presidential official said would boost social cohesion and Turkey’s democratic credentials. “There is no need to prove the coup attempt, all evidence shows that the coup attempt was organized on his will and orders”.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister says dossiers containing details of activities of the U.S-based cleric accused of plotting the failed coup have been sent to the U.S.

Turkey’s state-run news agency says courts have ordered 85 generals and admirals jailed pending trial over their roles in a botched coup attempt.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein voiced “serious alarm” at the mass suspension of judges and prosecutors and urged Turkey to allow independent monitors to visit those who have been detained.

Mr Erdogan has also been told that reinstating the death penalty could threaten Turkey’s membership with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Some Western leaders expressed concern that Erdogan, who said he was nearly killed or captured by the mutineers, was using the opportunity to consolidate power and further a process of stifling dissent.

“A person of this kind can easily be extradited on grounds of suspicion”, Kalin said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called for global observers to be stationed at detention centers to make sure those accused of being involved in the coup attempt have access to lawyers and their families.

In his first interview since the July 15 attempt, he said his people do not see “any other outcome” apart from death.

Turkey scrapped capital punishment in 2004 as part of its push to join the European Union, and European leaders have warned Ankara that restoring it would derail its EU aspirations.

Erdogan has remained in Istanbul since he flew back on Saturday from the holiday resort of Marmaris where he was staying when the coup struck.