Washington bans all flights between US and Turkey

The US government has prohibited all American airlines from flying between the US and Turkey after a failed coup attempt rocked the country and sparked violence there.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates all aspects of American civil aviation, issued the notice on Saturday for all US commercial and private aircraft.

"The FAA is monitoring the situation in Turkey in coordination with our partners in the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security and will update the restrictions as the situation evolves," it said in a statement.

The US State Department has also cautioned American citizens against travel to Turkey in the wake of the coup attempt that left at least 265 dead.

On Saturday, Turkey said it managed to largely crush an attempted military coup launched by an army faction after a night of explosions, gunfire and tanks rolling along the streets of the capital, Ankara, and Turkey’s largest city Istanbul.

Fierce clashes erupted between army forces and soldiers involved in the foiled coup.

Turkish authorities blamed US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen for the bungled coup and demanded that he be handed over to Turkey.

Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan has insisted that Washington should turn Gulen over to Ankara, arguing that Turkey had never turned back any extradition request for “terrorists’’ by the US.

Washington said it would consider an extradition request, while warning its NATO ally that public suggestions of a US involvement in the plot were “utterly false” and harmful to relations.

The attempted coup complicated the US military operations in Iraq and Syria. Turkey closed its airspace to military aircraft and cut off power to Incirlik air base, a major launch point for US air strikes against purported Daesh positions.

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