Possible coup in Turkey
 

Apparently the Military has taken control

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...rd-in-ankara1/

Is otherchelebi still traveling in North America or are they back home now?

Hope everyone is safe.

I'm following a live feed. Multiple reports that Turkey's top general being 'held hostage' at military HQ. Still sorting thru it all...

Turkey's state broadcaster has been stormed by the military & staff have had phones confiscated, according to Sky News.

All flights out of Istanbul are cancelled, says Fox News.

Well, I'm glad I'm not due there until September! Sincerely hope otherchelebi is still in the US.

I entirely sympathize with wanting to get rid of Erdogan, but I will be rather surprised if this works.

We are supposed to be flying to Istanbul tomorrow evening, out of San Francisco, on Turkish Airlines, in route to Paris. Now what, I wonder?

christy, get on the phone with them, if you can. Maybe you can re-route...it's worth a shot. Good luck.

A coup is a scary thing - but Erdoğan seemed like an evil ba$!^rd

>>We are supposed to be flying to Istanbul tomorrow evening<<

Wow -- have you heard anything from the airline?

No. I'm going to see if I can get through to them.

The 800 number isn't working. I'm trying to find out the number of the ticketing desk at SFO. I think they just opened.

OC was still tweeting, as of an hour ago:

https://twitter.com/ahmetcelebiler

Erdogan in airplane, refused landing at #Istanbul, now trying to seek asylum in Germany, US defense officials say, @MSNBC

Thanks for the tweeter link, crazy. Christy, good luck to you, not the place to be.

Thanks. I'd be very happy to just continue on to Paris, thanks!

SFO lists the Turkish Airlines flight at 6:10pm today heading to Istanbul as being "on time." Really??

We spent a wonderful month traveling throughout Turkey 16 years ago. I was really hoping to show Istanbul to my teenager. I'm so sorry for the Turkish people. My travel hassles are the least of it.

Who plans a coup for a Friday? NATO has all kinds of basket cases in membership these days

From the BBC site looks like a failure.

Wonder what the fallout will be. Hope very much this hasn't made things worse.

All the Turkish people I know are secularists and oppose Erdogan, so of course that colors my perspective.

A qualified failure.

There are apparently some F16s still flying and bombing places.

Some gunfire heard not far from where we live in Istanbul.

I have been tweeting like crazy from Chicago and hoping we can fly back next week.

A major possibility that the whole thing is a sham staged by Erdogan to make sure he gets his dictatorship having crushed all opposition.

We have a saying in Turkish, "Stick with both ends dipped in s..t"

You can follow my tweets at link given by Annhig or read some of them (last one first) here


#Military might eventually returns to their barracks. but religious fanatics & their instigators can survive under all conditions.

36m36 minutes ago
Once you get fundamentalist fanatics into the streets, is there a way of sending them back to wherever they came from?

38m38 minutes ago
#DoganNewsAgency, #ChannelD & #CNNTurk are shut down by force while we heard a large group chanting "God Is Great" in the background.

40m40 minutes ago
#Turkey: Gov says they have full control, and proves it by closing down all opposition TV. But F16s are flying and bombing places.

Erdogan is blaming my Pocono neighbour, Fettulah Gülen, for the coup.

Keith and I saw him at Olive Garden recently eating bread sticks.

Stay safe.

Where is Orhan Pamuk right now?


Thin

A major possibility that the whole thing is a sham staged by Erdogan to make sure he gets his dictatorship having crushed all opposition.>>

great minds, OC. My commiserations that Turkey is in a state of flux once again, and relief that you are safe - I had forgotten that you were in the US. did you have advance warning perchance?

Well, if it wasn't a sham, it seems to have been a pretty feeble effort. Undoubtedly worse than not trying.

The name of our guide in Istanbul was named Sham, interesting

A black hawk helicopter of the turkish army landed in Alexandroupolis, a Greek city close to the turkish border.
The 8 crew members requested asylum, which has to be decided from the greek authorities.

The turkish government asked officially for the return of the helicopter.

I just heard! Oh, the irony

Turkish military seeking asylum in Greeve


You can't make this stuff up

Never let a crisis go to waste. Erdogan now has an excuse for a Stalinist purge of anyone who might disagree with him and to attack whoever he wants.

According to the BBC 2,700 judges have been fired for alleged links to the coup. Purge apparently underway....

Jack Cade was only half right

200 of those fired have already been arrested, and might face the death penalty

Send in the Butcher

According to the BBC 2,700 judges have been fired for alleged links to the coup. Purge apparently underway....>>

he had already locked up some lawyers for defending "unpopular" causes, and then locked up the lawyers who tried to defend their colleagues. sacking judges who might disagree with him seems to be the next logical step.

Looks like Istanbul Ataturk airport is operating again, although with some significant delays.

I was planning to go to Turkey next year! I will watch and wait...glad I had not booked anything yet.

Christy, please let us know what happens with your flight.

I don't even want to connect in IST now, let alone visit

So far there is no death penalty in Turkey.

However, dissenters have been tortured and killed in Turkish prisons, sometimes by just withholding critical medicine or hospitalisation.

United States published a ban to all flights to and from Turkey. In direct travel originating in Turkey is not allowed also.

We seem to be stuck in Chicago, just as we were stuck in London during the Iceland volcanic ash occasion. It is too early to call THY to find out what their solution is, but will do so Sunday and/or Monday.

In the meantime, fundamentalists are still called to hit the streets, even by text messages to their mobile phones. No reason is given, but it is apparent that this is the group of people Erdogan was talking about during Gezi Protests 3 years ago when he said "I may not be able to hold them back".

Now he does not wish to hold them bak. We have some news of Islamists attacking people drinking beer or wine at a restaurant and an Alevite group demonstrating for human rights being attacked by islamists. Also many cases of undercover police insulting people on the streets of istanbul.

The video footage of surrendering GI s being lynched by the Islamists tells a great deal of what we may be facing in the near future.

However, I and Eser still look forward, as I tweeted earlier :

"This morn from the 50th floor, I noticed 2 bright blue wagons of a train passing a mile away. Hoping this is an indication for our future."

#otherchelebi glad to know you and Eser are well and in USA during this upheaval. If the judges are sacked, journalists and tweeters won't have protection of law, stay safe.

I'm glad to see you are ok too, Otherchelebi. The world is watching this, whatever it is, with dismay.

All the best to you & yours.

Thanks all.

Here's a good article on the current situation without giving gory details of lynching of surrendering soldiers and torture of all arrested military personnel.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/18...il0=y&referer=

Good article, otherchelebi. Thank you. So happy to hear you and your family are safe. So sorry for your beautiful country.

Otherchelebi, good to hear from you. As I said on another thread about this, it all seems to have ended suspiciously quickly...one thinks of that line from the film, 'Casablanca' - "round up the usual suspects".

That said, the NYT wisely warns against conspiracy theories:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2...hat-wasnt.html

oops sorry otherchelebi, that's the same article to which you linked. Great minds think alike...(we will overlook that fools seldom differ... ;) )