Turkey military stops coup attempt

Turkey’s Acting Military Chief of Staff, Umit Dundar has said the attempted coup by a faction of the armed forces has been quashed.

The coup which began on Friday evening when tanks took up positions on two bridges over the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, blocking it to traffic. Troops were seen on the streets and low-flying military jets were filmed over Ankara.

The Chief said 104 coup plotters had been killed and 1,563 arrested in a night of gunfire and explosions in Ankara, Istanbul and elsewhere.

A further 90 people died and 1,154 people were injured as thousands of Turks heeded President Erdogan’s call to rise up against the coup-plotters.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed a “parallel structure”, in a clear reference to Fethullah Gulen, a powerful but reclusive US-based Muslim cleric he accuses of fomenting unrest.

However, in a statement, Mr Gulen rejected any suggestion he had links to the events, saying he condemned “in the strongest terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey”.

Shortly after, a faction of the army released a statement saying that a “peace council” was running the country, and there would be a curfew and martial law.

The group said it had launched the coup “to ensure and restore constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms”.

It said that the democratic and secular rule of law had been eroded by the current government, and there would be a new constitution.

President Erdogan was in the south-west holiday resort of Marmaris at the time. He made a televised address, via his mobile phone, urging people to take to the streets to oppose the uprising.

He then flew on to Istanbul, saying Marmaris had been bombed after he left.

In a speech at Istanbul airport, Mr Erdogan said: “What is being perpetrated is a treason and a rebellion. They will pay a heavy price.”