Turkey’s Erdogan declares three-month state of emergency

Rights group Amnesty International said that authorities had canceled 34 journalists’ press cards and called on Turkish authorities to not “arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression”.

“We have a strategic partnership, and we have to continue our solidarity”, he said. “If they insist on keeping him there for whatever reasons a lot of people here will think he is protected by the United States”.

Ankara has vowed to root out those who support Fethullah Gulen, a United States based cleric it blames for the failed military takeover.

Turkey accuses U.S-based Gulen of being behind the coup attempt and has demanded that he be extradited to face trial.

The government has promised to respond to the attempted coup with a heavy hand, making mass arrests in what is increasingly looking like a well-planned witch hunt.

The agency did not specify what kind of treatment the officers were receiving at the Gulhane Military Medical Academy.

“This measure is in no way against democracy, the law and freedoms”, Mr Erdogan said in a national televised address after a meeting with Cabinet ministers and security advisers.

Erdogan told supporters in Istanbul on Monday that “an important decision” would be announced after the national security council meeting, without specifying.

About 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or are under investigation since Friday’s military coup attempt.

Gulen denies any involvement in the failed coup.

There was no immediate statement Wednesday from Turkey’s Telecommunications Board, a government agency that regulates access to websites.

The purges of Turkish institutions included the country’s Education Ministry on Tuesday, when more than 15,000 of its employees were suspended.

On Wednesday, Mr Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey, saying the measure was needed to counter threats to democracy.

Several senior figures in the military are facing court in Ankara, military officials have said.

Last Friday’s attempted coup by rogue elements of the military resulted in the martyring of at least 240 people and the injuring of almost 1,500 others.

The Turkish air force meanwhile launched their first strikes against targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq since the putsch aimed at unseating Erdogan, in a sign he has regained full control over the armed forces.

The government has since cracked down hard on alleged rebel soldiers, formally arresting 99 of 118 detained generals and admirals, and also placing in custody thousands of troops, with some later seen bruised and wounded. “We had F-16 jets flying in low altitude, faster than the speed of sound; that was of course an effort to instill fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of people who were assembled there, and then we sat down with a number of colleagues in positions of authority and we planned the aftermath, what was going to follow”.

After Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey would consider a return of capital punishment, Seibert said such a move “would mean the end of European Union membership talks”.

Turkey’s parliament has approved a three-month nationwide state of emergency in a 346-115 vote, parliamentary speaker Ismail Kahraman said.

Officials on Wednesday raised the death toll from the violence surrounding the coup attempt to 240 government supporters.

Observers around the world have also questioned why the coup was so ineptly managed as to appear doomed to failure.

Asked if the extradition request would affect wider relations with the U.S., Erdogan said “putting the two issues together is not the right thing to do”.