Turkey to lift state of emergency
ANKARA: Turkey will next week lift the state of emergency introduced after a failed 2016 coup and which granted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government greater powers to detain suspects, his spokesman said on Friday.
The announcement comes after Erdogan chaired the first cabinet meeting since he won elections last month endowing him with sweeping new powers, and pressing economic challenges topping the agenda.
“The current state of emergency is coming to an end on the night of July 18. Mr President has the will ... not to extend it,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters after the meeting in Ankara.
Under emergency rule, renewed seven times since the abortive coup against Erdogan’s elected government, over 110,000 public sector employees have been removed from their jobs while tens of thousands more have been suspended in a crackdown criticised by Ankara’s Western allies.
Amnesty International in April said freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial had been “decimated” under the state of emergency introduced five days after the attempted putsch on July 15, 2016.
More than 1,300 associations and foundations have been shut down under the measures.
However the government says the purges are needed to rid the state of the “virus” of Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen blamed by the authorities for masterminding the coup bid.
Gulen, who is based in the US, has denied any role and insists his movement promotes peace.
Kalin added that the lifting of emergency rule would not slow down Turkey’s fight against terror, and that the fight would continue “in a determined fashion” under counter-terrorism laws.