July 15, 2016: Turkey's failed coup and the aftermath

ISTANBUL: On July 15, 2016, rogue Turkish troops simultaneously moved into Istanbul and the capital Ankara in a bid to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been in power since 2003.

Within less than 24 hours it was over, but the fighting cost the lives of at least 250 people and injured another 2,000, and became a turning point in modern Turkey’s history that has cemented Erdogan’s grip on power.

Deadly fighting

On the evening of July 15, fighter jets and helicopters began overflying Istanbul and Ankara, with the rebels firing on the Turkish parliament, and cutting off Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

Fighting broke out as people flooded onto the streets to stop the coup following an appeal by Erdogan, with tanks and troops firing on the crowds and the mob turning their anger on the rebel soldiers, kicking, punching and attacking them with knives.

AFP photographers in Istanbul saw people shot dead but also saw soldiers lynched by the mob, with their iconic images capturing a sense of civil war.

It was the fifth time since World War II that Turkish troops had taken to the streets to change the destiny of their country.

Friend turned archfoe

Erdogan immediately blamed the attempted coup on Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric and former ally turned arch-foe, who had been living in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999.

Gulen, who died in 2024, categorically denied any involvement.

For years, his followers — known as Gulenists — held powerful positions within Turkish society, in the media, the police and the judiciary with the support of Erdogan’s ruling AKP before the pair fell out.

As the coup was playing out, Erdogan himself declared the situation to be “a gift”, recalled Paris-based political scientist Ahmet Insel.

“Ultimately, this current move is a great gift from God because it will lead to the purging of our armed forces,” Erdogan said after reaching Istanbul early on July 16.

A week later, he spoke of the need to “rid our state institutions of this cancer”.

Erdogan’s counterattack

After the coup was quashed, Erdogan imposed a state of emergency that lasted two years and involved an extensive purge of the army, the police, the media, judiciary, the education system and the diplomatic sphere.

Since 2016, some 390,000 people have been detained on terror or coup-related charges, with nearly 5,000 convicted of direct links to the putsch, and close to 127,000 convicted of Gulenist ties, according to the Stockholm Center for Freedom advocacy group, citing figures from official sources and the press.

More than 127,000 were dismissed from the public sector and more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were dismissed, it said.

“Erdogan had already demonstrated his authoritarian tendencies before that,” said Insel.

The coup, he explained, “sped up the shift from a parliamentary regime to a hyper-presidential regime with all powers concentrated in the head of state”, effectively bringing about the “Putinisation” of Turkey in reference to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.