Western allies warn Turkey over rolling crackdown

Turkey’s western allies have warned it against using a crackdown on coup plotters to purge political opponents and stifle dissent.

More than 8,000 police officers were sacked and ordered to return their weapons yesterday, suggesting an expansion of a purge that has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 7,500 soldiers, judges, prosecutors, regional governors and civil servants.

Amid fears among his critics that President Tayyip Erdogan was using the opportunity to consolidate his power, US secretary of state John Kerry said Washington supported bringing the coup organisers to justice, but cautioned against "a reach that goes well beyond that." Mr Kerry said Nato, of which Turkey is a member, had "a requirement with respect to democracy" and would "measure very carefully what is happening."

Death penalty

In

Germany

, Chancellor

Angela Merkel

warned

Ankara

that reinstating the death penalty, as broached by Mr Erdogan after the coup was thwarted, would “in no way” be compatible with Turkey’s goal of EU membership. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 to meet EU accession criteria.

Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu rejected "unacceptable" criticism from overseas, however, saying Ankara "strongly condemned" the implication that the principles of the rule of law would be violated and political opponents given arbitrary treatment.

For a third consecutive night, Mr Erdogan’s supporters celebrated the defeat of the coup, with crowds waving national flags again converging on Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

Turkish authorities said 7,543 people had been detained so far. Some of the arrested soldiers were shown in photographs with bruised faces, stripped to their underpants and handcuffed on the floors of police buses and a sports hall.

Confessed

The state-run Anadolu agency said former air force chief Akin Ozturk had confessed to being one of the leaders of the coup, but private broadcaster Haberturk contradicted this, saying he had told prosecutors he tried to prevent the attempted putsch.

The Turkish government says the uprising was masterminded by Fethullah Gülen, a US-based cleric and former Erdogan ally who has a wide following in Turkey.

Ankara has demanded that Washington hand Gülen over, but Washington says it is prepared to extradite him only if Turkey provides evidence linking him to crime.

Debate in Turkey has focused on how the country’s leaders could have been unaware of plans for a coup that appears to have had significant support within the state system.