Turkish authorities Thursday imposed a three-month state of emergency, strengthening powers to round up suspects accused of staging the failed military coup despite global alarm over a widening purge.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the state of emergency, the first in Turkey in one and a half decades, shortly before midnight after an almost five-hour meeting of his national security council.
The decision was then published in the official gazette Thursday morning, meaning it has now officially entered into force.
He said the nationwide measure would allow Turkey to be cleared of “terrorists” linked to US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom the president accuses of masterminding the failed coup from his leafy compound in Pennsylvania.
The state of emergency was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt,” Erdogan said at the presidential palace in Ankara.
Meanwhile, a Greek court has handed down a two-month suspended prison sentence to eight Turkish military personnel who fled to Greece aboard a helicopter in the hours after last week’s attempted coup in their country.
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