Turkey was close to violent collapse

HAD the faction of the Turkish armed forces that attempted to seize control of Istanbul and Ankara on Friday succeeded, the consequences for Turks would have been grave.

Images of helicopters assaulting the parliament and firing on anti-coup protesters would have been a mere taste of the violence that would have inevitably followed, in all likelihood consuming the entire country.

The consequences for the region, and Europe, would have been scarcely less dire.

As it stands Turkey is a finely balanced electoral autocracy, a deeply divided society ruled over by a president with few scruples and a lust for power.

But while Mr Erdogan’s order is unjust, even cruel, it is not completely illegitimate.

A junta run by the soldiers I witnessed filing into central Istanbul would have been just that – and would not have been accepted. A vicious civil war on the model of the one the Turkish army has already started against the Kurds would surely have followed.

Turkey is too important to implode. Its fate is entwined with the peace and prosperity of south-east Europe, the outcome of the Syrian civil war, and a humane settlement of the migrant crisis. The statusquo is unstable but a military coup promised blood and no hope for progress on any of these matters.