Fez – Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Saturday that security forces stopped 1500 military personnel in various regions of the country in connection with attempted bloody coup carried out by a group of rebel soldiers. Media outlets have reported that over 2,800 have been arrested.
CNN TV channels showed live video of a group of fifty insurgent soldiers who had been blocking one of two Bosporus bridges leaving their tanks and putting down their arms to surrender to the security forces and others soldiers surrounded by police in Taksim Square.
16 insurgent soldiers were killed at the headquarters of the Turkish gendarmerie in Ankara in clashes with pro-government forces, while 250 others were arrested.
Turkish parliament held an emergency session on Saturday morning in Ankara despite having been targeted by coup leaders with a series of aerial bombardments on Friday night.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala dismissed five generals and 29 colonels from duties while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference on Saturday in Istanbul airport that the people involved in the attempted coup will pay the price. “They are a minority within the army; they will receive an appropriate response, no matter what their affiliations are,” he added
The Turkish president also stated that the coup is an ‘’opportunity to clean the army,” declaring that “a massive campaign of arrests is taking place within this institution and will include senior officers.”
