Turkey remains defiant

Ankara extends police powers and shutters schools amid criticism

ISTANBUL: Turkey is pushing ahead with a sweeping crackdown against suspected plotters of its failed coup, defiantly telling EU critics it had no choice but to root out hidden enemies.

Using new emergency powers, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet decreed that police could now hold suspects for one month without charge, and announced it would shut down over 1,000 private schools it deems subversive.

A week after renegade soldiers tried to oust him with guns, tanks and F16s, Erdogan’s government has detained over 13,000 people it suspects are state enemies, mainly soldiers but also police, judges, teachers and civil servants.

And after rounding up nearly 300 officers of the presidential guard over suspected links to the coup, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that Turkey planned to disband the 2,500-strong unit, saying there was “no need” for the elite regiment.

As part of the mass arrests, police also detained a nephew of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, 75, whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the July 15 putsch and whose followers it labels a “terrorist” group.

Senior Gulen aide Hails Hanci was also arrested, a Turkish official said, describing him as a “righthand man” to Gulen and responsible for transferring funds to the exiled preacher.

Fears that Erdogan will seek to further cement his rule and muzzle dissent through repression have strained ties with Western Nato allies and cast a darkening shadow over Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned that “a country that jails its own university professors and journalists imprisons its future”.

Turkey’s EU Minister Omer Celik insisted that European leaders don’t appreciate the scale of the threat and lamented that none had come to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Turkey’s leaders after the bloodshed of July 15.

Celik insisted that Turkey, despite the turmoil, remained committed to its long-term bid to join the European Union, and would honour a landmark deal with the EU to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

“We don’t believe this is the end of the road, it is time to start brandnew momentum,” Celik told reporters in Ankara, when asked if the EU membership bid was still a strategic aim. — AFP