Turkish president breaks down in tears at friend’s funeral as number of people held in relation to coup rises above 6,000

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan broke down in tears on Sunday evening as he paid his respects to supporters who died during a botched coup attempt this weekend – and ominously vowed to cleanse the Turkish state of dissidents after the arrest of at least 6,000 people, including 29 of the country’s top generals.

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Erdoğan sobbed uncontrollably during a funeral at a mosque in Istanbul as he tried to eulogise a father and son who were shot during the uprising. The father, Erol Olçak, one of 290 people killed during the failed putsch this weekend, was an old friend and longtime political ally.

“We march in our funeral shrouds, and we will deal with these assassins, this cult, these followers of Fethullah,” Erdoğan said, referring to the dissident movement run by exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who he accuses of orchestrating the coup.

Overcome with emotion, Erdoğan was unable to continue, but in an earlier speech at the mosque he promised to purge Turkish institutions of Gülen’s supporters. Claiming that the “Gülen group” had ruined the armed forces, he vowed to “clean all state institutions of the virus”. Erdoğan also said Turkey would request the extradition of Gülen, who has been given sanctuary in the US state of Pennsylvania, and his backers. Gülen denies any involvement in the coup, and some analysts have also expressed doubt about his links to the events.

In emotional scenes outside the mosque on the Asian side of Istanbul, Erdoğan’s fury was matched by that of thousands of flag-bearing supporters who gathered to pay their respects to the dead, and to condemn their killers.

“The coup was a form of terrorism,” said Mehmet Aydin, a 57-year-old former civil servant who had travelled all the way from Ankara to be at the funeral with his family. “Coup plotters don’t care about the citizens – they just care about their own leaders, not the people.” Aydin was also a conscript and unwilling participant during a previous Turkish coup in 1980.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police officers link arms during a funeral for victims of the failed coup attempt at Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara. Photograph: Ilyas Akengin/AFP/Getty Images

A few metres away, a journalist at a pro-Erdoğan newspaper had even harsher words. “These are the victims of soldiers who were mentally deficient,” said Ertuğrul Aydin, 42. “Their mentality was that of a terrorist or a madman.”

Erdoğan’s government was partly saved on Saturday morning by huge numbers of Turkish civilians, who defied a military curfew to fill the streets in protest at the ongoing coup, forcing the plotters to retreat.

Riding this wave of apparent popular backing, Erdoğan has begun a purge of the Turkish state, detaining at least 6,000 people since Saturday, including 29 of Turkey’s 300 generals. It follows a crackdown on civilians that was ongoing prior to the coup, and which may have played a part in its inception. Broadcaster CNN Turk said Erdoğan’s chief military assistant, Ali Yazici, was among those being held.

Bekir Bozdağ, the Turkish justice minister, said in a television interview: “The cleansing [operation] is continuing. Some 6,000 detentions have taken place. The number could surpass 6,000.”

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There have been further isolated instances of violence despite the coup attempt having officially been declared over. At an Istanbul airport on Sunday evening, Turkish officials said shots were fired when 11 soldiers alleged to be involved in the coup tried to resist arrest.

US-Turkish relations have frayed over the accusation of Gülen’s involvement, with the US State Department releasing a statement denying any link to the events. “Public insinuations or claims about any role by the United States in the failed coup attempt are utterly false and harmful to our bilateral relations,” the State Department said, summarising a message given by the secretary of state, John Kerry, to his Turkish counterpart.

Kerry said that Turkey should produce evidence of Gülen’s guilt, amid concerns that Erdoğan was using the aftermath of the coup to settle scores with enemies both at home and abroad. “We would invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny,” Kerry was quoted as saying at a press conference.

The Turkish commander of an airbase used by the US was among those detained on Sunday. An official said General Bekir Ercan Van, 10 other soldiers, and one police officer from the Incirlik base were being held.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Government supporters taking part in a sailing demonstration on the Bosphorous on Sunday. Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

Bombing raids on Syrian outposts of Islamic State, which were suspended after it was claimed that a group of Turkish soldiers were involved in the botched coup, resumed on Sunday from the base. There was no suggestion that US troops at the base were in any way involved.

Both leaders of Islamist movements, Erdoğan and Gülen once had common cause in Turkey, partnering against secular opponents in the Turkish state. But in recent years Erdoğan has accused Gülen of remotely orchestrating a campaign to oust him. Gülen went into exile in 1999 to flee Erdoğan’s predecessors, and Erdoğan himself turned on Gülen in 2014, when the US-based cleric was issued with an arrest warrant for allegedly running “a terrorist group”.

Gülen denies that his supporters are behind this weekend’s events in Turkey, and the plotters themselves said they were fighting to protect Turkey’s secular traditions. Erdoğan has been criticised for eroding the secular mentality of the Turkish state, and undermining Turkish democracy.

This has not stopped him from using the coup to crack down on his opponents. In a speech on Saturday, he said the coup was “a gift from God” because it would allow him now to “cleanse the army”. At least 2,380 officers and soldiers were arrested this weekend as the purge began, according to figures released on Sunday night. One of the captured generals was Erdal Öztürk, the commander of Turkey’s third army, who could now face the death penalty after Erdoğan’s allies called for a change to the constitution to allow the execution of plotters.

Erdoğan’s purge continued in other state institutions, with more than 2,700 judges fired from their posts. Most analysts agree that the failed coup has given him the public support he needs to push for a change to the political system. Erdoğan wants to centralise power around himself as president, rather than the parliament, continuing an autocratic trend that he has led in recent years.

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France’s foreign minister warned Erdoğan against using the failed coup as a “blank cheque” to silence his opponents. “We want the rule of law to work properly in Turkey,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told France 3 television. Ayrault said the events of the past two days had also raised questions about Turkey’s reliability in the fight against Isis.

Commenting on the situation in the Guardian, the Turkey analyst Andrew Finkel said: “Many would argue that Turkey was already in the throes of a slow-motion coup d’état, not by the military, but by Erdoğan himself. For the last three years, he has been moving, and methodically, to take over the nodes of power.”

Nevertheless, Turkey’s secular opposition was united in its opposition to the coup attempt. “Yes, we have problems in Turkey,” said Hişyar Özsoy, an MP for the pro-Kurdish HD party. “But at the same time, no military intervention can be a solution.”