TURKEY

News of a failed coup attempt in a NATO member country bordering the European Union would surely merit loud expressions of relief. Relief that the death toll has stopped rising from the 290 fatalities already recorded.

With almost every passing hour since last Friday’s putsch searching questions continue to arise over the nature of this coup attempt and what the resulting arrests of 6,000 people, including senior army commanders and some 3,000 judges, now means for the country and for geopolitical stability across the region.

Whether Turkey can now be considered a functioning democratic state within its own right must now be open to question in the wake of a remarkably swift and sweeping series of arrests of government critics. Not only have few dissenting voices been spared, but the imagery used by the country’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to describe them suggests an orchestrated retaliation altogether better organised (and more vicious) than the coup attempt itself. Mr Erdogan has wasted no time in expressing vitriolic language, declaring: ‘We will… continue to cleanse the virus from all state institutions, because this virus has spread… (and) has enveloped the state.”

A US aircraft takes-off from Incirlik air base, a strategically important base for raids against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Such use of language, combined with the seizure and arrest of so many members of the country’s judiciary, suggest that President Erdogan is making full use of the opportunity to move against anyone he considers an enemy.

He has also taken advantage of the opportunity to accuse the American-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, of being directly behind the plot and is demanding his extradition. No evidence has yet been furnished to support this demand and Mr Gulen strongly denies any involvement. The attempted coup, however, as mystifying in its origins as in its failure to succeed despite a notable mutiny of army personnel and air power support, has been swiftly seized upon to buttress Mr Erdogan’s position and to provide the pretext for further measures and reforms to tighten his already extensive grip on power. Autocracy is what Mr Erdogan ultimately craves.

Among the arrests was the military commander of Incirlik air base in the south, a strategically important site used by US-led coalition jets for raids against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It is said he and 10 other soldiers had been detained for their role in the coup.

In addition, 50 senior soldiers were detained in the western province of Denizli. Those arrested in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup included the commander of the Third Army, the commander of the Second Army and the former Chief of Air Staff.

One of the country’s most senior judges, Alparslan Altan, was among thousands of the senior judiciary taken into custody. Quite how Turkey can comply with US President Barack Obama’s stricture that it should remain within the rule of law is moot.

The putsch has created problems for western powers dependent on Turkey’s co-operation both in military actions against IS strongholds, and in curbing the flow of migrants into the EU. The country is also a putative EU member; and, it is widely thought that in order to secure Turkey’s continuing co-operation in migrant control its application for full EU membership has proceeded this far.