After bloody night, Turkey’s president declares coup attempt foiled

 ISTANBUL - Turkey’s government appears to have defeated a coup attempt by renegade members of the military, slowly restoring control to the major cities after a night of chaos and clashes that has plunged the already troubled country and close U.S. ally into uncertainty.
At least 60 people were killed in the violence in the capital Ankara, including a lawmaker who died when the parliament was bombed by a helicopter and government forces have arrested 1,563 members of the armed forces around the country, said a senior Turkish official with the presidency.

 This government, brought to power by the people, is in charge,” said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a huge crowd of supporters gathered at Istanbul airport shortly after dawn.
“Turkey is proud of you,” roared back the crowd.
“I am here, I am with you and I want you to know this,” Erdogan said, following a night of bloodshed that saw Turkey, a major NATO member and key U.S. ally, spin briefly out of control.
Hours earlier, branches of the police and army had fought pitched battles for control of major government buildings in the capital, Ankara, as protesters swarmed onto the streets to confront the tanks rumbling into their cities.

Helicopters flown by coup supporters fired on official buildings and into the crowds gathering to challenge the attempt to overthrow Turkey’s government, in the most significant challenge to the country’s stability in decades.
Gruesome video footage posted on social media showed tanks crushing protesters who tried to block their path, bloodied bodies strewn on the streets of Ankara and helicopters firing into civilian crowds, raising fears that the toll could be higher.
By the early hours of Saturday morning, Turkish officials said the government had managed to claw back control from the coup plotters, whose identity and profile remained unclear.
Turkey’s Police Chief Celalettin Lekesiz told Anadolu news agency that 16 coup plotters had been killed at the military police command in clashes that were about to end and 250 members of the command had been detained.

 The Interior Ministry also reported that five generals and 29 colonels had been removed from their posts.
The army chief of staff, Gen. Hulusi Akar, was rescued from an air base in Ankara where he had been held hostage since the start of the coup, added the news agency Saturday morning and would now take over operations.
A Turkish warplane shot down a helicopter carrying some of the coup leaders, the officials also said, and the state broadcaster, which had been silent for several hours after it was overrun by soldiers, was back on the air by morning.

 Istanbul Ataturk Airport reopened after being closed for hours, and officials said the national airline had resumed flights.
Erdogan, who was visiting the coastal resort of Marmaris when the coup began, flew to the airport and emerged to greet the thousands of cheering, flag-
waving supporters.
“A minority group within the armed forces targeted the integrity of our country,” Erdogan told reporters at the news conference broadcast live on state television. “This latest action is an action of treason, and they will have to pay heavily for that. This is a government that has been elected by the people.”
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim issued orders early Saturday to the military aircraft pilots still loyal to the government to take to the skies to shoot down any remaining planes flying on behalf of the coup plotters.
“The situation is largely in control,” Yildirim told Turkey’s NTV television channel. “All commanders are in charge. The people have taken steps to address this threat.

At one point, soldiers overran the offices of several major media organizations, including CNN Turk, which went off the air.
The unrest raised fears that Turkey could be destined for a prolonged period of civil strife that would reverberate across an already bloodstained and chaotic region.
With the main opposition parties making statements condemning the coup attempt, and most of the important branches of the military and security services rallying to the government’s side, it did not appear that the renegades had widespread support.
Erdogan, whose party won a comfortable majority in elections last year, then appealed to his supporters to take to the streets to protest the coup. He spoke to the nation using the FaceTime app on the phone of a Turkish TV anchor.
Many thousands responded, with protesters gathering in venues including Istanbul’s central Taksim Square and outside Erdogan’s palace in Ankara. Mobile phone videos uploaded to social-media sites showed scenes in which people scrambled over tanks to try to block their path and soldiers opening fire on some of the crowds.
Turkish officials blamed the coup attempt on a small group of disgruntled military officers loyal to the movement of a U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who maintains a network of adherents across Turkey and has long challenged Erdogan’s hold on power. The officers were destined to lose their jobs in August during a military reshuffle, said the Turkish official.
The Gulenist movement denied involvement, however, and amid the confusion, it was impossible to confirm who was behind the attempt to topple the government.
Source: Washington Post, 16 July 2016