European politicians and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, have called onTurkey to respect the rule of law amid a purge of state institutions in the aftermath of this weekend’s botched coup.
Speaking at a meeting of Kerry and the EU’s 28 foreign ministers – including the UK’s Boris Johnson – the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the group intended to send a strong message to the Turkish president, Recep TayyipErdoğan.
“We call for the full observance of Turkey’s constitutional order and we asEuropean Union stress the importance of the rule of law,” Mogherini said. “We need to have Turkey respect democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Kerry told a news briefing: “We also urge the government of Turkey to uphold the highest standards of respect for the nation’s democratic institutions and the rule of law. We will certainly support bringing the perpetrators of the coup to justice but we also caution against a reach that goes well beyond that.”
He said Turkey must provide evidence that “withstands scrutiny” when requesting the extradition of US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, who Erdoğan has blamed for the attempted coup.
As Turkish authorities consider restoring the death penalty, which was outlawed in 2004, Mogherini stressed such a move would rule out EU membership.
“No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty,” she said, noting that Turkey was a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European convention on human rights, which bans capital punishment.
Mogherini said: “[Just as we were] the first ones to say in that tragic night [of the coup on Friday] that the democratic and legitimate institutions needed to be protected, today we will say, together with the ministers, that this obviously doesn’t meant that the rule of law and the system of checks and balances in the country doesn’t count. On the contrary, it needs to be protected for the sake of the country itself. So we will send a strong message on that.”
Mogherini was among several leading politicians to stand by Erdoğan in the early hours of Saturday morning, calling for the coup plotters to back down and respect Turkey’s democratic process.Turkish officials deny the suggestion that they are acting inappropriately, let alone outside of legal norms.
But there are now concerns that Erdoğan is using the aftermath of the attempted coup to crack down not just on its perpetrators but also on political opponents who were not involved in the rebellion.
Following the coup’s failure, the Turkish government immediately announced the detention of 2,700 judges and prosecutors, and on Monday said 7,850 police officers had been fired. By Sunday, the number of people arrested rose to about 6,000, leading to questions about how many of the arrests were actually linked to the coup. For several years, Erdoğan has been accused of rising authoritarianism, and some argue this is more of the same.
On Saturday and Sunday, Erdoğan and his ministers also spoke of reinstating the death penalty to punish the plotters – a move that would make Turkey ineligible to join the EU, and could also jeopardise the EU-Turkey deal that has markedly reduced the migration flow to Europe.
While Erdoğan and his allies have amplified the sense of an authoritarian crackdown by using language such as “purge” and “cleansing” to describe their backlash, Turkish officials on Monday said the government was not guilty of mission creep.
One Turkish official said those arrested or fired were either clearly involved in the coup or had known ties with those who led it. “I understand that the numbers seem excessive, but right now this is about preventing the next wave of attacks against civilians and government buildings,” he said. “Obviously, the courts will consider evidence and reach their verdicts.”
He added: “I am starting to feel that we are ignoring the fact that the parliament was hit 11 times by hijacked F16s.”
The official also denied that Erdoğan would use the aftermath of the coup to increase his presidential powers. “Right now, our priority is to treat the wounded, bury the dead and bring to justice the people who bombed the parliament three days ago,” the official said.
“It looks at least as if something has been prepared. The lists are available, which indicates it was prepared and to be used at a certain stage,” Hahn said before the EU meeting. “I’m very concerned. It is exactly what we feared.”But some European politicians remained unconvinced. The EU official responsible for Turkey’s request to join the EU, Johannes Hahn, feared that the government was rounding up opponents it had already listed for arrest before the coup.
The Belgian foreign minister, Didier Reynders, also spoke out against the possibility of Turkey reinstating the death penalty, a punishment it abolished in 2004 to apply for EU membership.
Reynders said: “We cannot imagine that from a country that seeks to join the European Union. We must be very firm today, to condemn the coup d’état but the response must respect the rule of law.”
Meanwhile, a video emerged in Turkey that purportedly showed some of the alleged military masterminds of the coup, now handcuffed and in detention. With bruised faces, they give their names – to scorn and derision from interrogators.
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