More than 250 people were killed, including many civilians, after a faction of the armed forces tried to seize power using tanks and helicopters. Some strafed the headquarters of Turkish intelligence and Parliament in Ankara, the capital, while others seized a major bridge in Istanbul.
Erdogan accused the coup plotters of trying to kill him and launched a purge of the armed forces, which last used force to stage a successful coup more than 30 years ago. “They will pay a heavy price for this,” said Erdogan, who also saw off mass public protests against his rule three years ago.
“This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army.” One government minister said some military commanders were still being held hostage by the plotters.
But the government declared the situation fully under control, saying 2,839 people had been rounded up from foot soldiers to senior officers, including those who had formed “the backbone” of the rebellion.
A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled the country of about 80 million people since 2003, would have marked another seismic shift in the Middle East, five years after the Arab uprisings erupted and forced Syria into civil war.
However, a failed coup attempt could still destabilise a NATO member and major US ally that lies between the European Union and the chaos of Syria, with Islamic State bombers targeting Turkish cities and the government also at war with Kurdish separatists. Erdogan, who had been holidaying on the southwest coast when the coup was launched, flew into Istanbul before dawn on Saturday and was shown on television outside Ataturk Airport.
Addressing thousands of flag-waving supporters at the airport later, he said the government remained at the helm, although disturbances continued in Ankara.
Erdogan, a polarising figure whose Islamist-rooted ideology lies at odds with supporters of modern Turkey’s secular principles, said the plotters had tried to attack him in the resort town of Marmaris.
“They bombed places I had departed right after I was gone,” he said. “They probably thought we were still there.”
Erdogan’s AK Party has long had strained relations with the military, which has a history of mounting coups to defend secularism although it has not seized power directly since 1980. However, he also commands the admiration and loyalty of millions of Turks, particularly for restoring order to an economy once beset by regular crises.
Living standards have risen steadily under his rule, and while the economy has hit serious problems in recent years, it grew a greater-than-expected 4.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. Still, the violence is likely to hit a tourism industry already suffering from the bombings, and business confidence is also vulnerable.
In a night that sometimes verged on the bizarre, Erdogan frequently took to social media, even though he is an avowed enemy of the technology when his opponents use it and frequently targets Twitter and Facebook.
Erdogan addressed the nation via a video calling service, appearing on the smart phone of a CNN Turk reporter who held it up to a studio camera. He said the “parallel structure” was behind the coup attempt — his shorthand for followers of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric whom he has repeatedly accused of trying to foment an uprising in the military, media and judiciary.
Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, once supported Erdogan but became a leading adversary. He condemned the attempted coup and said he played no role in it. Secretary of State John Kerry said the USA had not received any request to extradite Gülen.
More than 100 coup plotters are now dead, acting military chief General Umit Dundar said on live TV, while another 90 people — including 47 civilians — were killed as ordinary Turks poured into the streets to confront tanks amid pitched battles in the main cities.
By Saturday morning, government forces had closed in on the army headquarters in Ankara, the final stronghold of coup plotters, said a senior Turkish official who added that 1,563 members of the military have been arrested so far. In Istanbul, the streets were empty after a night of gunfire, explosions and violent confrontations on the bridges and in the city’s main squares.