A number of Turkish military officers are seeking asylum in Europe, Nato’s chief has said, months after a coup attempt that shook the country and led to a purge of the upper echelons of the armed forces.

“Some Turkish officers working in Nato command structure … have requested asylum in the countries where they are working,” said Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, in Brussels. He did not name the nations involved or the number of officers, saying it was a matter for those countries to decide.



“We have seen a number of changeovers in the Nato command structure where Turkish personnel has been changed,” Stoltenberg said. “I expect Turkey to fill all its posts at the Nato command structure.”



The statement, coming before weekend talks in Istanbul, is likely to anger the Turkish government, which has said its allies should do more to support Ankara’s efforts to clamp down on the coup plotters and to close down their networks in Europe and elsewhere.



Eight military officers fled Turkey the day after the coup attempt by plane to Greece, but it is unclear what other nations have seen asylum requests. One possibility is Germany, where local media has said the number of asylum applications from Turkey has skyrocketed since the putsch.



The post-coup purge has targeted tens of thousands of military and police personnel, judges, academics, journalists and civil servants that the government accuses of harbouring sympathies or allegiance to Fethullah Gülen, a Pennsylvania-based preacher and head of a grassroots movement called Hizmet, who is widely believed in Turkey to be behind the coup attempt.



Critics of the government and senior European officials have said the purge goes beyond the coup plotters and is being used as a tool to crack down on dissidents. Senior leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were arrested nearly two weeks ago, and a dozen staff and board members at the leading opposition newspaper, Cumhuriyet, have been detained in terrorism investigations in recent days.



David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, urged Turkey on Friday to release all imprisoned journalists, saying their detentions did not improve public safety.



Speaking to reporters at the end of a weeklong visit to Turkey, Kaye said he understood the Turkish government’s need to take measures to counter terror threats and protect its citizens, but added: “That does not mean that the government has a blank cheque to do whatever it wants to restrict freedom of expression.”

