Hours after Turkey’s military said armed forces had “fully taken control” of the country, government officials were adamant that the coup attempt was short-lived.
President Tayyip Erdogan, whose whereabouts were not being disclosed by his office, had returned on a flight to Istanbul, with large crowds greeting him at the airport.
Strange to see footage of 1000s at entrance to Ataturk airport..2
wks ago it was a lineup of cars at a tense checkpoint after bombing #cbc
Erdogan was quick to blame the movement of the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. They have denied any involvement in the coup attempt.
Erdogan has launched a broad campaign against Gulen’s movement in Turkey and abroad. Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania’s Poconos, has been charged criminally with plotting to overthrow the government, and was placed on trial in absentia in Turkey earlier this year.
The military had said it seized control to protect the democratic order and maintain human rights.
Here are the answers to some questions emerging in the crisis.
What’s happening on the ground?
Erdogan said after landing in Istanbul that his general secretary was abducted by coup makers and there is no information on the chief of the military staff.
Footage on local television channels in the early stages of the uprising showed military vehicles blocking bridges over the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul and tanks deployed at the city’s main airport on Friday. In the capital of Ankara, warplanes and helicopters roared overhead.
Flights to and from Istanbul’s main airport, Ataturk, have been cancelled and that road border crossings are expected to be closed as well.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported that 17 police officers were killed in a helicopter attack on police special forces headquarters on the outskirts of Ankara, while Turkish fighter jets shot down a military helicopter over Ankara that was being used by plotters attempting a coup, broadcaster NTV said.
Parliament Speaker Ismail Kahraman says a bomb hit one corner of a public relations building inside the parliament in Ankara complex, injuring some police officers.
He says there are no fatalities and that all legislators are safe at a parliamentary shelter.
Soldiers open fire on people trying to cross Istanbul’s Bosporus bridge1:04
Martial law and a curfew have been imposed across Turkey, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT. Not long after making that announcement, TRT went off the air for a period of hours before the signal resumed.
Despite the martial law and curfew calls, many people appear to have taken to the streets — an action Erdogan urged in protest of the coup attempt in a FaceTime conversation with a CNN Turk reporter that was broadcast live. Erdogan’s call to protest was also broadcast over some public loudspeakers and sent to citizens on their cellphones via text message.
How significant is this?
If successful, the overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, would amount to one of the biggest shifts in power in the Middle East in years.
Turkey is a NATO member with the second biggest military in the Western alliance. The country is one of the most important allies of the United States in no small part because of its location, bordering eight countries, including Iraq, Iran and Syria. The country is one of the most important allies of the U.S. in the fight against ISIS.
Have there been coup attempts in Turkey before?
Yes. The Turkish military has “long seen itself as the guardian of Turkish democracy,” according to Al-Jazeera, and staged outright coups in 1960, 1971 and in 1980. It also launched a “postmodern coup” in 1997, when military generals worked behind the scenes to pressure former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan out of power.
What’s the political situation in Turkey?
There has been a political tug of war within Turkey, the CBC’s Nahlah Ayed recently reported, driven by division over an increasingly controlling president, and the longstanding battle with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has carried out several deadly attacks. In addition, Turkey is host to two million Syrian refugees and the launch pad for the biggest influx of migrants to Europe since the Second World War.
Turkey is a principal backer of opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in that country’s civil war. Celebratory gunfire erupted in Syria’s capital Damascus as word got out that Erdogan had been toppled, and people took the
streets to celebrate there and in the government-held section of the divided city of Aleppo.
Erdogan was elected president in 2014 with plans to alter the constitution to give the previously ceremonial presidency far greater executive powers. Prior to that, he had been prime minister since 2003.
Erdogan’s AK Party has long had a strained relationship with the military and nationalists in a state that was founded on secularist principles after the First World War.
The size of the Turkish military is reportedly in the 300,000 to 400,000 range. It was not immediately clear how extensively the coup had penetrated the ranks of the military.