At one point yesterday, the world looked on in horror as a military coup was announced by elements in the Turkish military and it seemed that one of the few surviving Muslim majority democracies was going to be driven under autocratic rule. However, latest information from Turkey suggests that President Erdogen has seized back power from the dissidents in the Turkish military and the country can now look forward to no immediate danger to the democratic values of the country.
According to reports published by Reuters, "Turkish forces loyal to President Tayyip Erdogan largely crushed an attempted military coup on Saturday after crowds answered his call to take to the streets in support of the government and dozens of rebels abandoned their tanks. One hundred and sixty-one people were killed, including many civilians, after a faction of the armed forces tried to seize power using tanks and attack helicopters. Some strafed the headquarters of Turkish intelligence and parliament in the capital, Ankara, and others seized a major bridge in Istanbul. Erdogan accused the coup plotters of trying to kill him, and launched a purge of the armed forces, which last used force to stage a successful coup more than 30 years ago."
The report went on to state, "At one stage, military commanders were held hostage by the plotters, a minister said. By Saturday evening there were still isolated rebel pockets but the government declared the situation fully under control, saying 2,839 people had been rounded up, from foot soldiers to senior officers, including those who had formed "the backbone" of the rebellion. Anadolu news agency said one of those detained was the commander general of the second army, one of Turkey's most senior military officials. A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled the country of about 80 million people since 2003, would have marked another seismic shift in the Middle East, five years after the Arab uprisings erupted and plunged Turkey's southern neighbor Syria into civil war."
