Turkey announces 3-month state of emergency after failed coup
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency following a failed coup in the country.
During a live speech delivered from Ankara on Wednesday, Erdogan said the state of emergency was required “to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organization involved in the coup attempt.”
He further promised that the special measures, which vastly increase state security powers, would not be a “compromise on democracy".
“The aim is to rapidly and effectively take all steps needed to eliminate the threat against democracy, the rule of law and the people's rights and freedoms," he added.
Erdogan also claimed that US-based Fethullah Gulen was behind the coup.
Gulen has denied any role in the coup attempt, warning the Turks instead that the move could have been orchestrated by the government to purge its opponents.
The Turkish president made the announcement after he chaired a meeting of the National Security Council at the Presidential Palace in Ankara.
Earlier in the day, he noted that the recent coup attempt may not be fully over yet, and that foreign countries may have been involved in the attempt.
Meanwhile, Turkey has arrested two members of the country’s constitutional court along with 111 other judiciary officials. Erdogans’s chief aide-de-camp has also been formerly charged in relation to the coup.
The botched putsch began late on July 15, when a faction of the Turkish military blocked Istanbul’s iconic Bosphorus Bridge and strafed the headquarters of the Turkish intelligence agency and parliament in the capital.
Turkey began to go after those believed to have played a role in the abortive coup after the one-day attempt was declared over on July 16. Official estimates show that over 60,000 people, including senior government and judiciary officials and members of the army, have been sacked or dismissed from their jobs since then.
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