Erdogan lands in Istanbul amid ‘treasonous’ coup attempt

Hundreds of supporters on Saturday greeted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he landed in Istanbul following a coup attempt by parts of the military.

Cheering supporters surrounded Erdogan’s cortege of cars directly on the tarmac after the plane carrying him landed at Ataturk International Airport, which was otherwise closed to traffic, NTV television pictures showed.

Erdogan blasted a coup attempt as “treason,” putting the blame on supporters of his arch-foe, US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, in defiant remarks after flying back to Istanbul.

“What is being perpetrated is a treason and a rebellion. They will pay a heavy price for this act of treason,” Erdogan said at Istanbul’s airport.

The president said his hotel in the Aegean coast resort of Marmaris was bombed after he left. But he remained defiant, vowing: “We will not leave our country to occupiers.”

Earlier the president struck a defiant note, vowing that the “coup plotters” trying to take over the country would not succeed and calling on his supporters to take to the streets.

“I certainly believe that coup plotters will not succeed,” Erdogan told CNN Turk television, speaking on FaceTime via cell phone in his first reaction to the move by the Turkish armed forces.

“I urge the Turkish people to convene at public squares and airports. I never believed in a power higher than the power of the people.”

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has instructed the military to shoot down an aircraft hijacked by coup plotters, an official said Saturday.

“Fighter jets have left the air base in Eskisehir” in western Turkey with the aim of hunting down the rogue craft, the official said.

Yildirim meanwhile said over 120 people had been arrested over the coup attempt.