Turkey intensifies crackdown after failed coup attempt

The Turkish government said it had full control of the country last night as it intensified its crackdown on thousands of soldiers and judges who allegedly supported the failed military coup.

Security forces last night fired what officials said were warning shots while arresting coup plotters at Istanbul’s second airport.

Separate clashes were reported at an air base in Konya in central Turkey.

For a second night, jubilant supporters of president Tayyip Erdogan converged on Taksim Square in Istanbul to celebrate the failure of the uprising.

More than 6,000 people, half of them in the military, have been detained since Friday, with Mr Erdogan vowing to purge state bodies of the "virus" behind the revolt.

Air strikes

Among those arrested are 29 of Turkey’s 300 generals and the commander of the Incirlik air base, from which US aircraft launch airstrikes on Islamic State militants in

Syria

and

Iraq

.

Mr Erdogan’s chief military assistant was also detained, CNN Turk reported.

More than 290 people, including over 100 rebels, were killed on Friday and Saturday, while 1,400 were injured.

Mr Erdogan has blamed the plot on the US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, a one-time ally who he accuses of trying to create a “parallel structure” within the courts, police, armed forces and military with the aim of toppling the state. Mr Gülen has denied this and said he had no role in the revolt.

“We will continue to cleanse the virus from all state institutions, because this virus has spread.

“Unfortunately, like a cancer, this virus has enveloped the state,” Mr Erdogan told mourners at a funeral for some of the victims.

He broke down in tears while eulogising a father-and-son who were shot.

Capital punishment

He called on his supporters to continue protesting, saying the threat against him was not completely eliminated, and indicated the reintroduction of capital punishment – abolished in 2004 to meet

European Union

accession criteria – was on the agenda.

“We cannot ignore this demand,” Mr Erdogan told supporters who gathered in front of his Istanbul home to call for plotters to face the death penalty.

“In democracies, whatever the people say has to happen.”

Some western powers have raised concerns about Turkey’s response to the coup attempt.

US Secretary of State John Kerry described the suggestion that the US was behind the revolt, a claim made by a Turkish government minister, as "utterly false" and harmful to US-Turkish relations.

The French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said the revolt was not "a blank cheque" for Ankara to disregard the law.

Mr Erdogan has said Turkey will demand the return of Mr Gülen's supporters from the United States and western Europe, but Mr Kerry said Turkey should produce evidence of Mr Gülen's guilt.

Operations from Turkey by the US-led coalition against Islamic State resumed yesterday after Ankara reopened its air space, which had been closed during the coup attempt.

The Department of Foreign Affairs advised Irish citizens in Turkey or intending to travel there to “exercise a high degree of caution.”