The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has refused to rule out executing the ringleaders of last week’s failed coup, despite repeated warnings from western leaders who said the use of the death penalty would end Turkish hopes of joining the European Union.

“The people have the opinion that these terrorists should be killed,” Erdoğan said in interview for CNN on Monday night. “Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons for years to come? That’s what the people say.” Erdoğan said the final decision lay with parliament and that “as the president, I will approve any decision to come out of the parliament”.

Some fear that Erdoğan may be using the backlash against the plot’s architects as a smokescreen for a wider crackdown on other political opponents.

Europe and US urge Turkey to respect rule of law after failed coup Read more

Erdoğan’s allies said measures taken by the government were a necessary and justified response to a coup attempt that had almost toppled an elected administration, left the parliament badly damaged and killed hundreds of civilians.

Erdoğan was nevertheless accused of mission creep, with almost 9,000 policemen, 30 regional governors and more than 50 senior civil servants dismissed since Friday and more than 7,500 people arrested.

The detainees included more than 6,000 soldiers and 103 generals and admirals – just under a third of the military’s high command. Arrest warrants were still out for 2,700 judges, and all 3 million civil servants have been given travel bans amid government fears that some plotters within the deep state might attempt to flee. One journalist was listed for arrest, and by some estimates 20 news websites critical of the government had been shut down.

Responding to the widening crackdown, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, urged the Turkish government to “uphold the highest standards of respect for the nation’s democratic institutions and the rule of law. We will certainly support bringing the perpetrators of the coup to justice, but we also caution against a reach that goes well beyond that.”

Speaking in Brussels, where he met European foreign ministers including the UK’s new foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, Kerry said Turkey would have to provide evidence that “withstands scrutiny” if it requested the extradition of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Erdoğan has blamed for the attempted coup.

As Turkish authorities consider restoring the death penalty – outlawed in 2004 – in response to the coup attempt, the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, stressed that such a move would rule out EU membership. “No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty,” she said, noting that Turkey was a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European convention on human rights, which bans capital punishment.

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A spokeman for German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the EU was a “community of values, therefore the institution of the death penalty can only mean that such a country could not be a member. We categorically reject the death penalty and an institution of the death penalty would mean an end to the negotiations to join the EU.” he said.

A statement from EU foreign ministers called for “the full observance of Turkey’s constitutional order”, but missing was any mention of a refugee pact struck between Turkey and the EU this year. That agreement hinges on visa-free access for Turks to Europe’s 26-country passport-free zone, but has run into trouble as Erdoğan has refused to change Turkey’s anti-terror laws, a key condition of joining the EU.

The French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said Turkey was a “strategic partner” but had to respect fundamental liberties. “After the failure of the attempted military coup, the response must not be less democracy in Turkey but more democracy,” he said.

The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, in an unusually sharply worded statement, said it was “essential for Turkey, like all other allies, to ensure full respect for democracy and its institutions, the constitutional order, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms”.

While Erdoğan and his allies have amplified the sense of an authoritarian crackdown by publicly using language such as “purge” and “cleansing” to describe the government reaction, Turkish officials on Monday expressed frustration at western criticism. They view the crackdown as a legitimate response.

One Turkish official said those arrested or fired either were clearly involved in the coup or had known ties with those who led it. “I understand that the numbers seem excessive, but right now this is about preventing the next wave of attacks against civilians and government buildings,” he said. “Obviously, the courts will consider evidence and reach their verdicts.”

He added: “I am starting to feel that we are ignoring the fact that the parliament was hit 11 times by hijacked F16s.”

Elsewhere in Turkey, some argued that the crackdown was expanding far beyond its acceptable remit. Among Turkish journalists, who were already the subject of a backlash prior to the coup attempt, there were rumours of an imminent series of arrests. At least one arrest warrant was formally issued – for Haberdar’s Ankara correspondent, Arzu Yıldız.

In an online statement, Yıldız said she had no connection to the coup attempt. “I do not even know the names of these soldiers and generals,” she wrote.

Andrew Finkel, the co-founder of P24, an initiative that supports independent Turkish media, said the pressure on journalists had “obviously gone up a notch since the [failed] coup”.

He added: “It’s basically because they can. There are all these dissident news sites that have been very critical of the government, and they want to shut them.”

Other analysts were less certain about the scope of the crackdown. Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Turkey analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former columnist in the Turkish media, said: “They’re paranoid and they’re cracking down on people they think were affiliated with Gülenists. But I don’t think they’re going to go after leftwing unionists that traditionally oppose AKP [Erdogan’s party], or Kurds.”



Aydıntaşbaş added: “That’s not to say that the crackdown is based on the rule of law, but as widespread as it looks, I think it is still linked to people who are presumed to be Gülen-affiliated.”

Life has continued relatively normally in Turkey since Saturday morning, but the country is still on edge. The government has called for its supporters to remain in the streets in a show of strength to deter conspirators who remain at large. Searches for suspects continued in several cities, and on Monday a man was killed outside an Ankara courthouse after reportedly firing on security forces. In Istanbul, the deputy mayor of a central district was shot in his office.