ISTANBUL — Military factions in Turkey
tried to seize control of the country Friday night, setting off a
furious scramble for power and plunging a crucial NATO member and
American ally into chaos in what was already one of the world’s most
unstable regions.
Early on Saturday morning, however, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
whose whereabouts was unclear through a long night of turmoil, flew to
Istanbul Ataturk Airport, a strong signal that the coup was failing.
“A
minority within the armed forces has unfortunately been unable to
stomach Turkey’s unity,” Mr. Erdogan said at the airport, after the
private NTV network showed him greeting supporters. Blaming political
enemies, Mr. Erdogan said “what is being perpetrated is a rebellion and a
treason. They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”
There
were indications that coup leaders, at a minimum, did not have a tight
grip on many parts of the country. Supporters of Mr. Erdogan took to the
streets of Istanbul to oppose the coup plotters, and there were
scattered reports some of its leaders had been arrested.
Martial
law was declared in the country, which has been convulsed by military
takeovers at least three times in the past half-century. President Erdogan,
an Islamist who has dominated politics for more than a decade and
sought to exert greater control over the armed forces, was forced to use
his iPhone’s FaceTime app from an undisclosed location to broadcast
messages beseeching the public to resist the coup attempt.
“There
is no power higher than the power of the people,” he said in a night of
wild confusion and contradictory accounts of who was in control. “Let
them do what they will at public squares and airports.
After
Mr. Erdogan spoke, many of his followers obeyed his orders to go into
the streets, and mosque loudspeakers exhorted his supporters to go out
and protest the coup attempt.
The
state-run Anadolu News Agency said 17 police officers had been killed
in a military helicopter attack by coup plotters on a police special
forces headquarters outside Ankara. There were also reports that fighter
jets had shot down a military helicopter used by coup plotters.
CNN Turk reported that 12 civilians were killed in an explosion at the Parliament building.
The United States Embassy said in a statement
that “shots have been heard in Ankara” and urged Americans to take
shelter. Social media outlets worked intermittently or were blocked.
The
events began unfolding around 10 p.m. Friday as the military moved to
stop traffic over two of Istanbul’s bridges, which cross the Bosporus
and connect the European and Asian sides of the city.
There
were reports of gunfire in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, where
pro-Erdogan supporters had gathered, but there were no reports of
injuries, and it appeared that security forces were acting with
restraint. On the Bosporus Bridge, which was closed earlier in the
evening by the military, there were reports of gunfire as protesters
approached, and according to NTV, a television news channel, three
people were injured.
Some
military figures spoke out against a coup, including the commander of
the First Army, Gen. Umit Guler, who issued a statement, carried by a
pro-government news channel, saying, “The armed forces do not support
this movement comprised of a small group within our ranks.”
Leaders
of opposition political parties, who have otherwise worked against Mr.
Erdogan’s government, also spoke out against a seizure of government by
the military.
“This
country has suffered a lot from coups,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader
of the main secular opposition party, the Republican People’s Party,
known by its Turkish initials C.H.P., said in a written statement,
according to Hurriyet Daily News. “It should be known that the C.H.P.
fully depends on the free will of the people as indispensable of our
parliamentary democracy.”
By
2 a.m., a large group of protesters had gathered at Ataturk Airport,
and the military had begun withdrawing, according to CNN Turk.
In
the back streets of Istanbul’s European districts, bars and restaurants
were showing footage on television of scenes at the bridge, while
partygoers were glued to their mobile phones trying to learn what was
happening.
“Some
people illegally undertook an illegal action outside of the chain of
command,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in comments broadcast on
NTV, a private television channel. “The government elected by the people
remains in charge. This government will only go when the people say
so.”
Shortly
after Mr. Yildirim spoke, factions of the Turkish military issued a
statement, according to the news agency DHA, claiming it had taken
control of the country.
“Turkish
armed forces seized the rule of the country completely with the aim of
reinstalling the constitutional order, democracy, human rights and
freedoms, to make rule of law pervade again, to re-establish the ruined
public order,” the statement quoted by DHA said. “All the international
agreements and promises are valid. We hope our good relations with all
global countries goes on.”
The
abrupt turn in Turkey came as Mr. Erdogan has been battling a wave of
deadly extremism by the Islamic State militant group, struggling to
accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees from the war in
neighboring Syria and fighting a resurgent Kurdish rebellion in the
Turkish southeast.
Senior
Pentagon officials in Washington said they were still trying to
determine what was occurring in Turkey. They said the United States had
not adjusted its military posture in the region.
The
Defense Department has roughly 2,200 uniformed military personnel and
civilians in Turkey. About 1,500 of them are based at Incirlik, an air
base in southern Turkey near Syria. The United States has used the base
to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State. Since March, Incirlik
has been on an “elevated force protection level” amid concerns that
militants were targeting it. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter in May
ordered all family members of military personnel based at Incirlik to
leave the country.
Mr. Erdogan blamed followers of Fethullah Gulen,
a Muslim cleric who lives in exile in Pennsylvania and who once was an
ally before the two had a bitter falling-out in 2013 over a corruption
inquiry that targeted Mr. Erdogan and his inner circle, for the coup
attempt. Over many years, followers of Mr. Gulen built up a presence in
Turkey’s police and judiciary, and Mr. Erdogan blamed them for the
corruption probe.
Mr.
Erdogan and his allies then purged the judiciary and the police of
those linked to Mr. Gulen, going so far as to call him the leader of a
terrorist organization and seeking, unsuccessfully, to have him
extradited from the United States. An organization associated with Mr.
Gulen in the United States, the Alliance for Shared Values, denied any
responsibility for the coup attempt.
Speaking
to local television, Mr. Yildirim said: “Illegal acts of some people
from among the military are the issue here. My citizens and my nation
should know that any act that would harm democracy would not be
allowed.”
He
continued, “The government that the citizens of the Turkish Republic
elected, representing the will of the people, is in charge and the
removal of it happens only by the decision of the people. Those who did
this attempt, who took part in this insanity, in this unlawful act, will
pay the heaviest price. I want my citizens to know that we will not be
deterred by those kinds of attempts.”
Since
the founding of modern Turkey in 1923, the military has staged coups in
1960, 1971 and 1980, and intervened in 1997. The military had long seen
itself as the guardian of the secular system, established by the
country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. But in recent years a series
of sensational trials had pushed the military back to its barracks,
which analysts said had secured civilian leadership over the military.
Across
Istanbul on Friday night, rumors swirled and evening plans were
upended. In the Arnavutkoy neighborhood, people flooded out of bars and
restaurants, hailing taxis and urging loved ones to get home to safety.
“There’s a coup,” one man shouted in the street. “There’s a coup, and
blood will be shed.”
Mr.
Erdogan attracted a wide-ranging constituency in the early years of his
tenure, including many liberals who supported his plans to reform the
economy and remove the military from politics. But in recent years he
has alienated many Turks with his increasingly autocratic ways, cracking
down on freedom of expression, imposing a significant role for religion
in public life and renewing war with Kurdish militants in the country’s
southeast.
“The
people tried to stand up against President Erdogan, but they couldn’t,
they were crushed, so the military had no choice but to take over,” said
Cem Yildiz, a taxi driver.
Mr.
Yildiz said that recent terrorism in the country attributed to Islamic
State militants, including a recent attack on Istanbul’s main airport
that killed dozens, was “the tipping point” for him. He blamed Turkey’s
policy on Syria for the terror attacks. Early in the civil war there,
Turkey supported rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government.
Many of the fighters who traveled through Turkey to Syria joined the
Islamic State, and critics have blamed Mr. Erdogan for enabling its
rise.
“He has destroyed this country and no one will stand up to him but the military,” he said. “There was no choice but this.”
Seyda
Yilmaz, a teacher who was out in Istanbul on Friday when the news
broke, said, “The country is in chaos, and Erdogan needs to be put in
his place, but I’m afraid. I’m very afraid because in the past a lot of
innocent blood was shed in these coups. I’m anxious. I don’t know what
to say at this point. We are all in shock. No one thought that the
military would stand up against Erdogan.”
