Obama denies US involvement in failed Turkey coup

Parliament voted 346-115 to approve the national state of emergency, which gives sweeping new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been accused of autocratic conduct even before this week’s crackdown on alleged opponents. He has said the state of emergency will counter threats to Turkish democracy, though critics are urging restraint because they fear the measure will violate basic freedoms.

Since the coup attempt, several Turkish leaders have signaled that failing to hand over Gulen would be viewed as an unfriendly act on the part of the U.S. Labor Minister Suleyman Soylu went further: last Saturday, hours after the putsch had collapsed, he told a local broadcaster that the U.S.is “behind this coup” for so long as it continues to shelter Gulen.

As for his talks with his Mexican counterpart, he said they discussed climate change, immigration, border control and economic and trade relations, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP).

Before announcing the state of emergency, Erdogan said the sweep was not yet over and that he believed foreign countries might have been involved in the attempt to overthrow him. But Turkey also benefits from its association with Europe and the United States.

In fact, one of the main reasons behind the coup was to stop Erdogan from completely destroying Turkey’s remaining secular and democratic pillars, which were established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923.

At least 290 people were killed and nearly 1,500 injured amid violent clashes on 15 July as certain military factions attempted to stage a coup d’etat.

“Here is the army, here is the commander!” the crowd in Ankara chanted.

Thousands of people have been arrested or sacked since the failed coup.

“The attitude of western media was more like a “wait and see” kind of an approach”. This week, the landmark Ataturk Cultural Centre on Istanbul’s Taksim Square was draped with a huge banner that read chillingly: “Feto, dog of Satan, we will hang you and your dogs with your own leashes, with God’s permission we’ll wave the flag of democracy in the skies”.

Meanwhile, Ankara has intensified checks on Turkish citizens leaving the country in a move to prevent people associated with the attempted coup from escaping the authorities.

“There will be no curfews”.

Turkey continues to hunt an unidentified number of other military suspects. Turkish lawmakers approved a three-month state of emergency, endorsing new powers for Turk…

Erdogan has accused Gulen, a Turkish cleric and former political ally with whom he had a falling out in 2013, of engineering Friday’s coup attempt from his self-imposed exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, and trying to have Erdogan assassinated as part of the plot.

Around a third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained since the coup attempt, a senior official said, with 99 charged pending trial and 14 more being held.

Let me suggest, with tongue only partially in cheek, that we handle these two matters together, giving us a posture in which we stress our nation’s historic concern for the rule of law, and, simultaneously opening up jobs for hundreds of unemployed American high school teachers. There, governors imposed curfews, called in military forces to suppress demonstrations and issued search warrants.

In other developments, a soldier allegedly linked to the attack on a hotel where Erdogan had been vacationing during the foiled coup was arrested in southwestern Turkey, the state agency Anadolu reported Thursday. Reportedly this includes a special forces team that missed killing Erdogan in Marmaris by only 15 minutes.

The U.S. president also expressed the hope that as the dust settles in Turkey, there is not an over-reaction that would curtail civil liberties or weaken the ability of legitimate opposition.