ANKAKA Turkey has ordered the arrest of 223 serving military personnelacross the country and in the breakaway state of Northern Cyprus oversuspected links to a network Ankara accuses of organizing an attempted coupin 2016, state media said on Saturday.
Authorities are seeking the suspects across 49 provinces in Turkey and inNorthern Cyprus, state broadcaster TRT Haber said. It said 100 of thosefacing arrest were from the army, while 41 from the air force and 32 fromthe navy.
Ankara blames US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived inself-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, of masterminding the failedputsch on July 15, 2016. He has denied any involvement.
In the three-year purge since the coup attempt, more than 77,000 peoplehave been jailed pending trial and about 150,000 civil servants, militarypersonnel and others have been sacked or suspended from their jobs.
Turkey’s Western allies and rights groups have criticized the scale of thecrackdown, saying President Tayyip Erdogan has used the abortive coup as apretext to quash dissent.