Free Republic

Recent row during a Turkish parliamentary commission meeting spoke volumes. “We are cleansing everybody,” said the legislative body’s chairman, a member of the Justice and Development Party. “Everybody” means all who disagree with the AKP. “Cleansing” is the pattern established by the party of dismissing “everybody” from state institutions, public office. With Turkey in the third year of the post-coup period, the purge has not slowed. Discontent is being voiced. “Look, esteemed chairman,” roared Kurdish MP Meral Danis Bestas, “when the time comes and when you become subject to criminal charges, I and my friends will not hesitate to come...

Secretary of State John Kerry said this morning that the Obama administration is "open" to considering the extradition of a Poconos scholar accused by the Turkish regime of being behind Friday's coup attempt.Kerry said on NBC's Meet the Press that the U.S. has asked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to become more authoritarian in response to the coup.Hurriyet Daily News reported that Erdogan has detained some 6,000 soldiers, judges and prosecutors in less than 48 hours. They're being charged with “membership of an armed terrorist organization” and “attempting to overthrow the government of the Turkish Republic using force and violence...

As dawn broke in Istanbul on Saturday, Turkey's largest city, it was still unclear whether an attempt by the military to wrest control from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been successful. A defiant Erdogan addressed crowds in the city, telling them that the coup had been quashed. "The government is in control," he told supporters.