Turkish president Erdogan declares state of emergency

Any extradition request from Turkey, once submitted, would be evaluated under the terms of a treaty between the two countries, he added.

Turkey has asked for Gulen to be extradited from the USA, but Secretary of State John Kerry said his government’s response so far is “please don’t send us allegations, send us evidence”.

The common Turkish citizen – who has lived through military coups before – will be quick to recognise that these are the actions of an autocrat, not a democrat. “If there were accurate intelligence they could prevent the coup attempt”, Erdogan said.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim pledged to supply United States authorities with evidence linking the coup attempt to Gulen, who has been exiled in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s.

“They believe that, one way or another, they will lose their lives (in Turkey)”, said Vasiliki Ilia Marinaki, a lawyer representing four of the men, as they appeared in court with their faces covered.

Following the attempt, the Turkish Interior Ministry has dismissed nearly 9,000 police officers on Monday as part of a purge of officials suspected of involvement in the coup attempt.

Days after a failed coup attempt in Turkey, the country’s jets carried out cross-border strikes against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, killing some 20 alleged militants, state media reported Wednesday. Dozens of others were still being questioned. “The state of emergency in Turkey won’t include restrictions on movement, gatherings and free press etc. It isn’t martial law of 1990s”, he wrote on Twitter.

“We want to end the state of emergency as soon as possible”, he said.

In this vein, he quoted Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni as saying that “it is absolutely impossible to continue the dialogue with the country, which is going to introduce the death penalty, the abolition of which remains one of the principles of the European Union”.

“This parliament has seen plenty of coups but none of the coups have dropped bombs on parliament”, he said, referring to the three attempts to seize power launched by the army since 1960 and the 1997 bloodless coup which forced an Islamist government out of office.

He praised those who were killed fighting against the coup as “martyrs”.

At least 246 people were killed and more than 1,500 injured in the bloody violence that broke out on Friday night and continued Saturday, government officials say.

Even without the emergency measures, his government has already imposed a crackdown that has included mass arrests, mass firings and the closure of hundreds of schools.

Not only is Erdogan using the crushed coup as an excuse to purge his opponents, but he is edging closer to Russia’s authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin.

“We have no hesitation about the origin (of the coup)”.

Regarding Turkey’s demand that Gulen be extradited, Yildirim compared the situation to the US hunt for Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.