International News

ANKARA, (APP/AFP) – Turkish authorities Thursday
imposed a three-month state of emergency, strengthening powers to
round up suspects accused of staging the failed military coup
despite global alarm over a widening purge.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the state of
emergency, the first in Turkey in one and a half decades, shortly
before midnight after an almost five-hour meeting of his national
security council.
The decision was then published in the official gazette
Thursday morning, meaning it has now officially entered into
force.
He said the nationwide measure would allow Turkey to be
cleared of “terrorists” linked to US-based preacher Fethullah
Gulen, whom the president accuses of masterminding the failed
coup from his leafy compound in Pennsylvania.
The state of emergency was needed “in order to remove
swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved
in the coup attempt,” Erdogan said at the presidential palace
in Ankara.
But he added: “We have never made compromises on democracy.
And we will never make” them.
The state of emergency gives the government extra powers
to restrict freedom of movement, said an official, adding that it
would not restrict financial or commercial activities as
“international law sets limits of restrictions”.
Turkey in 2002 lifted its last state of emergency, which
had been imposed in southeastern provinces for the fight against
Kurdish militants in 1987.