Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday declared a three-month state of emergency in the country following a failed coup bid.
He also said other countries could also be involved in the attempt to overthrow him, adding that the organisation of United States-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who he blames for the coup bid, was itself led by a superior mind.
Earlier, Erdogan suggested in an interview with Al-Jazeera that coup plotters might still be active in the weeks ahead. “I don’t think we have come to the end of it yet,” he said.
Erdogan had said on Tuesday that the measure was being taken to counter threats to Turkish democracy and wasn’t intended to curb basic freedoms. He spoke after a meeting with cabinet ministers and top security advisers.
“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,” Erdogan said.
The President, who said he narrowly escaped being killed or captured by renegade military units, suggested that purges would continue within military ranks.
“As the commander in chief, I will also attend to it so that all the viruses within the armed forces will be cleansed,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan says the pro-government death toll in the botched coup was 246. At least 24 coup plotters were also killed.
Cracking down on alleged subversives in education, Turkey also said on Tuesdayt that it would close more than 600 private schools and dormitories following the attempted coup, spurring fears that the state’s move against perceived enemies is throwing key institutions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally into disarray.
Erdogan’s government said it has fired nearly 22,000 education ministry workers, mostly teachers, taken steps to revoke the licenses of 21,000 other teachers at private schools and sacked or detained half a dozen university presidents in a campaign to root out alleged supporters of a US-based Muslim cleric blamed for the botched insurrection on Friday.
The targeting of education ties in with Erdogan’s belief that the US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whose followers run a worldwide network of schools, seeks to infiltrate the Turkish education system and other institutions in order to bend the country to his will.