Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that if the national parliament submits a request for the introduction of the death penalty, he will approve it without hesitation.
Last night, in an address to the nation in front of the national parliament on the occasion of the first anniversary of the coup attempt, Erdogan said that the coup plotters attacked the institution that represents the democracy and freedom of that country, and which is the guarantor of its independence.
"Throughout the history of our republic, we have gone through many challenges, but no one has ever attacked the sanctity of the National Assembly. When the time comes, if the parliament adopts the request to introduce the death penalty, I will approve it, without any hesitation, because we have 250 martyrs and 2.193 injured." , Erdogan said.
The President of Turkey pointed out that he is not interested in what the international community will say about that decision.
"I wonder what our people think and what they say. Those traitors thought they were going to overthrow the government, and their goal was to destroy our civilization. Their first target was the parliament. They thought our people would hide at home and that members of parliament will leave it and run away. They didn't do that, our people defended our country," underlined Erdogan.
Stating that last year's coup attempt was the largest of its kind in the history of Turkey, Erdogan emphasized that the Turkish people did not behave like an ordinary community, but like a nation and that it showed the whole world how great it is.
"That night, the Turkish people fought against the terrorist organization and the army, bare-handed. My people stood up to those traitors, they fought for the flag and the love they had in their hearts, and there is no such example in the world," Erdogan said.
As he underlined, there is no nation that, as he said, stood up to bullets and tanks with bare hands and described them as "the iron shield of the Turkish nation and state".
Recalling that the Turkish parliament was founded in 1930, and that it was attacked 86 years later, Erdogan said that the Turkish people took to the streets to oppose the coup plotters, while members of the national assembly, 106 of them, entered the institution's building and held a session.
"On July 16, the parliament was bombed and shot at, and they defended it, our symbol of freedom and democracy. They defended our country, our freedom and our future," Erdogan said.
Erdogan also referred to the foreign media's assessment that there was a "controlled coup d'état" in Turkey that evening, that is, that it was staged.
"In different parts of the world, even when it comes to trivial events, they introduce a state of emergency. In our country, a coup was held to overthrow the government, 250 people were killed, 2.193 were wounded, and they still call it a controlled coup. It's a shame," Erdogan said.
The Turkish people, he added, are used to suffering, which is why others think they are weak.
"But when they see that we stand united, they retreat. As our forefathers said, there will come a day for those who betrayed us. We pray that day is near," Erdogan said.
Adding that July 15 showed who are friends and who are enemies of Turkey, Erdogan told the coup plotters that they will not be able to divide and destroy that country and lower its flag.
"You will not be able to threaten the freedom of our people, nor to stop us on our way, because we know who are our enemies and who are our friends," Erdogan concluded.
Erdogan's address to the nation, in front of the Turkish parliament, began at 3.25:XNUMX in the morning, after a minute of silence for the victims of last year's conflicts, the national anthem of Turkey and prayers.
During the attempted military coup on July 15, 2016, around 250 people were killed and nearly 2.200 were wounded in Turkey.
Throughout Turkey, the anniversary was marked with a series of activities throughout the week with the "Days of National Unity and Democracy" event. It ended in Istanbul with the "March for Democracy" of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the renaming of the Bogazici Bridge to the "Bridge of Martyrs on July 15", a march in Ankara and an address by the Turkish President, symbolically at 2.32:XNUMX a.m., when the putschist's fighter jet hit the National Assembly.
Turkish authorities accuse Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in the United States, of the coup attempt, although he denies any involvement.
In the past year, around 150.000 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs in the civil service and the private sector, and more than 50.000 have been detained on suspicion of being linked to the coup plotters.
The day before the first anniversary of the failed coup attempt, on July 14, around 7.500 policemen, soldiers and civil servants were dismissed.
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