European
leaders have reacted with alarm to Turkey's purges following the weekend's
failed coup attempt. European leaders caution that the rule of law must be
respected as the number detained exceeds 9,000.
Deutsche Welle, 18 Jul 2016
European
leaders said Monday that Turkey's widespread crackdowns on police, the judiciary and the military are increasingly alarming and threaten stability and
EU-Turkey relations.
"We
are the ones saying today rule of law has to be protected in the country,"
the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in Brussels. "There
is no excuse for any steps that take the country away from that."
We call for an end to use of violence. Societal tensions can only be addressed through democratic processes #Turkey https://t.co/TUfQxCiTUn— Federica Mogherini (@FedericaMog) July 16, 2016
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has doubled down with vows that the "cleansing"
of state institutions will continue as around 9,000 people were arrested, and
the military announced the formal end of the failed coup.
Alarm in
Germany and beyond
In Germany,
Norbert Röttgen, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) member and chair of the
foreign relations committee of the Bundestag, says there is evidence that
Erdogan is using the coup to make a power play to further exclude oppositional
political forces.
"This
is to say that President Erdogan would use this coup to consolidate his power
mostly by eliminating constraints and the opposition," Röttgen said in an
interview with the German newspaper Die Welt.
 |
| Thousands of military officers and rank-and-file soldiers whose loyalties are under suspicion are being rounded up across Turkey |
Erdogan's
talk of restoring capital punishment is also alarming diplomats in other
European capitals.
"In a
democracy, you cannot ignore the demands of people," Erdogan said Sunday
evening, citing chants from supporters calling for the death penalty, which was
formally abolished in 2004.
That would
be unacceptable, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, a frequent Erdogan
critic in Europe, told Austrian newspaper Kurier.
"The
introduction of the death penalty would of course be absolutely
unacceptable," Kurz said in remarks published Monday. "There must be
no arbitrary purges, no criminal sanctions outside the framework of the rule of
law and the justice system."
Restoring
the death penalty would almost certainly scuttle Turkey's halting bid for EU
accession, which was reactivated as part of a comprehensive deal for Turkey to
contain mass migration from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere to the EU.
Settling
old scores?
 |
| Arrests in Cankiri |
Some EU
leaders are worried that Turkey could be using the unrest to settle old scores
against Gulen, a former ally turned rival of Erdogan.
Johannes
Hahn, the EU commissioner dealing with Turkey's membership bid, said that given
the wide-ranging types of people under suspicion, a comprehensive dossier could
only have been drawn up in advance.
"It
looks at least as if something has been prepared," Hahn said Monday.
"The lists are available, which indicates it was prepared and to be used at
a certain stage."
 |
| Arrests in Izmir |
Authorities
have also detained General Mehmet Disli, who conducted the operation to capture
Turkey's chief of staff Hulusi Akar during the stand-off.
Reports had
said that a total of 36 generals had been detained so far. The private Turkish
Dogan news agency reported Monday that 10 of them had now been remanded in
custody by the courts.
The Turkish
president has urged citizens to remain on the streets even after the defeat of
the coup, in what the authorities describe as a "vigil" for democracy
but witnesses describe as gatherings mainly made up of supporters of the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP) co-founded by Erdogan.
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