CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT
Istanbul under occupation.
MUST SEE
Preparations to read out a coup declaration at TRT after 36 years
A total of 300 putschist soldiers who had overcome the police team in charge of controlling the entrances and exits of the TRT's Oran Campus in Ankara occupied the TRT building. After stopping TRT’s broadcasts on television and internet, Lieutenant Colonel Ümit Gençer took off his camouflage and put on his ceremonial clothes to read out the coup declaration which had been prepared by ‘The Peace at Home Council’ on TRT screens.
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also wanted to connect to TRT’s live broadcast at the same time. However, due to the fact that the TRT was occupied by the coup plotters, Prime Minister Yıldırım could not connect to TRT, but to NTV. Speaking on NTV’s live broadcast, Prime Minister Yıldırım said the events were an ‘insurgency.’
The coup plotters who named themselves ‘The Peace at Home Council’ attempted to stage a coup nearly 36 years after the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup. Lieutenant Colonel, who made the TRT anchorwoman read out the so-called coup declaration on behalf of ‘The Peace at Home Council’ said in his testimony that he had heard the coup attempt three days previous.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala, who was in Van during the coup attempt, took action to go to Ankara. Brigadier General Kemal Mutlum ordered Colonel Özkan Edip Akgulay, the Operation Commander of the 8th Main Jet Base, to force his plane to land in Malatya.
Map: İçişleri Bakanı Efkan Ala
BREAKING POINT
Special Forces Commander Zekai Aksakallı escaped the ambush.
Having left the critical meeting at the General Staff Headquarters at 07.00 p.m., Special Forces Commander Zekai Aksakallı went to the Gazi Military Officers’ Club (Gazi Orduevi) to attend the wedding ceremony of a friend of his. He left the club around 09.30 p.m. While entering the main street, Aksakallı’s car was intercepted. Coup plotters wanted to retain Aksakallı, but he escaped the ambush and went to a safe house near the Military Academy.
Helicopters attacked with missiles the guard team that went to pick up Aksakallı at the entrance of Sports Schools around 11.45 p.m. Nearly 10 minutes after the attack, Aksakallı phoned Adana Division Commander Major General Osman Erbaş and warned him to be careful, saying that the İncirlik Air Base was critical.
Harita: Zekai Aksakallı Paşa'nın Rotası
Putschist soldiers laid an ambush against Aksakallı with two cars in an attempt to arrest him. After escaping the ambush, Aksakallı managed operations from the safe house where he went.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was aboard a flight when the coup plotters took action. After getting off the plane at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport, Kılıçdaroğlu was informed about the coup attempt. His first reaction was to say that he wanted to return to Ankara. As planes did not take off, he decided to not take the road for a while.
As the air traffic was closed, Kılıçdaroğlu decided not to take the road for a while. Kılıçdaroğlu went to Bakırköy Mayor Bülent Kerimoğlu’s house in Yeşilyurt with his entourage. He started following the developments from the media there.
Kılıçdaroğlu headed toward Istanbul from Ankara on the evening of July 15 and followed the incidents in Istanbul. Declaring that he was against the coup through the media, Kılıçdaroğlu headed towards Ankara in the morning.
MUST SEE
Putschist soldiers carried out an airstrike.
Fighter jets used by putschist soldiers took off from the Akıncı Air Base in Kazan, Ankara and bombed the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the Gölbaşı Special Operations Department, the Ankara Police Headquarters and TÜRKSAT, Turkey's top satellite network, on the night of July 15. With the command of putschist Colonel Ahmet Tosun, the Police Special Operations Training Center in Ankara's Gölbaşı district was bombed by warplanes. As a result of airstrikes conducted by two pilots, Mehmet Çetin Kaplan and Ertan Koral, 17 police officers were martyred.
General Adem Huduti, along with close guards, entered the headquarters of the 2nd Army Command with seven different vehicles. Huduti, who was very calm and relaxed, gave some instructions to his aide-de-camp, Commander Sadat Kaya, before entering his room. The soldiers waiting in the command echelon began taking charge in the office. Huduti's close guards took security measures with long-barreled weapons in front of his office.
DETAIL
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey took action against coup makers.
After the coup attempt had been heard, Parliamentary Speaker İsmail Kahraman, some ministers, deputies and parliamentary staff came to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In the meantime, low-altitude flights continued over Ankara. At the same time, Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Melih Gökçek ordered that entrances and exits of critical public buildings be closed with municipal vehicles and heavy equipment to prevent the access of tanks and armored vehicles.
HARİTA: 15 Temmuz Gecesi Kritik İller - Ankara
CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT
A total of 17 generals were arrested.
Air Force Commander General Abidin Ünal, who heard about the coup attempt at the wedding ceremony of General Mehmet Şanver's daughter at the Moda Sea Club, began holding a meeting with 17 generals who attended the wedding ceremony at 11.30 p.m. Measures against the coup attempt were taken at the meeting. Generals participating in the meeting communicated with their bases. They reached the Air Operations Center in Eskişehir after the fighter jets that had taken off from the Diyarbakır Air Base did not comply with the order to land and putschist Brigadier General Bekir Ercanvan, the Commander of the İncirlik Air Base Commander in Adana, did not respond to the phone.
General Ünal phoned the Air Operations Center in Eskişehir and gave an order to be published in all the units. He said, "The Air Force Operations Center in Ankara is under the control of illegal people. Orders to be given by this center will not be fulfilled in any way. All orders will be published in Eskişehir Air Operations Center on my behalf. No airplanes will take off unless I order.” All units immediately published the message given by General Ünal. In the meantime, Lieutenant General Ziya Cemal Kadıoğlu and Lieutenant General Nihat Gökmen, who were at the wedding hall to support Brigadier General Recep Ünal who was in charge of the Eskişehir Air Operations Center, went to Eskişehir. Likewise, Air Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Hasan Hüseyin Demiraslan and Major General İdris Aksoy were ordered to go to Eskişehir.
As the meeting attended by General Ünal and the 17 other generals was continuing at the Moda Sea Club around 11.30 p.m., Ünal’s guards, whom he had left in Ankara, appeared at the door of the meeting room with arms and camouflage-patterned clothes. While the first group held the door of the meeting room and blocked the exits, a new group of putschist soldiers came to the Moda Sea Club at 11.55 p.m. The putschist group, consisting of 10 well-armed soldiers, raided the meeting room by firing guns into the air. The coup plotters arrested General Ünal and the other generals, tying plastic handcuffs around their hands. The first group brought General Ünal to the Akıncı Air Base by helicopter.
General Ünal was arrested by putschist soldiers at the Istanbul Moda Sea Club on the night of the July 15 coup attempt and brought to Ankara’s Akıncı Air Base.
CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT
Devlet Bahçeli's clear stance against the coup
After going to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Headquarters, Bahçeli met with his companions and took a clear stance against the coup, and reached Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on the second phone call. Having reached the Prime Minister, Bahçeli said that the military insurgency was unacceptable.
According to the statement made by Prime Ministry sources after the meeting, Bahçeli stated that the coup attempt was unacceptable and they were on the side of the Government of the Republic of Turkey.
DETAIL
Coup makers, facing resistance, made a psychological move.
After first seizing the General Staff Headquarters in Ankara, putschist soldiers sent a message via the e-mail account that the Turkish Armed Forces uses to communicate with accredited journalists claiming that “they fully took control” at 11.48 p.m.
The Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar, who had been arrested during the putschist soldiers’ raid on the General Staff Headquarters after 09.00 p.m., was brought to the Akıncı Air Base. Anadolu Agency (AA) announced at 11.48 p.m. that Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar had been taken hostage.
CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT
The plan to occupy the Special Forces Command is in place.
Special Forces 1st Brigadier Commander Brigadier General Semih Terzi phoned Special Forces Commander Zekai Aksakallı on July 15 and asked permission to come to Ankara, saying that his father was sick. After getting permission from Aksakallı, Terzi took action along with a 100-person team in Silopi.
Although they tried to communicate with the Diyarbakır 8th Main Jet Base after Ünal’s instruction, they could not receive an answer from Diyarbakır. In the meantime, Semih Terzi, along with a team of 40 people, took off from the Diyarbakır 8th Main Jet Base and reached the Ankara Akıncı Air Base.
DETAIL
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım changed his route.
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım took the road from Istanbul to Ankara with his wife, Semiha Yıldırım. He preferred to travel by land, instead of air because of security risks. He was merely accompanied by his regular bodyguards and driver. Prime Minister Yıldırım’s convoy went towards Kastamonu because of the possibility of airstrikes and entered the Ilgaz Tunnel, which was still under construction. They entered the construction site in the Ilgaz Tunnel as a precaution against airstrikes and to avoid giving signals that would reveal their location. They stayed there for one and a half hours during which Prime Minister Yıldırım uninterruptedly continued to contact Ankara.
Map: Başbakan Binali Yıldırım'ın Rotası
Another important place that putschist soldiers planned to capture in Istanbul was the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. At 11.00 p.m., putschist soldiers came in front of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and started to deploy around the building. The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Civil Defense Secretary Mehmet Tunç, who met the coup plotters at the door, had meal prepared for them.
Tanks coming from the 66th Armored Mechanized Infantry Brigade Command, which had aimed to occupy the Istanbul Police Headquarters that is within walking distance of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, were hindered by security forces and roadblocks that people created with earth-moving trucks. At the same time, 69 putschist soldiers from the 47th Motorized Infantry Regiment Command, with nine of them being high-ranking, came in front of the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) Istanbul Provincial Presidency in an attempt to seize the AK Party building.
Putschist soldiers started simultaneously occupying the places that they considered to be important in Istanbul. They entered the Istanbul Governorate at 11.11 p.m., and Taksim Square at 11.20 p.m. While they occupied the Borsa Istanbul Stock Exchange building at 11.44 p.m., a group of putschist soldiers who simultaneously took action entered the TRT’s Istanbul Radio building in Harbiye. They also seized the flight control tower at the Atatürk Airport at 11.55 p.m.
'Hainlerin kurşunu hiç acıtmadı'
İnsanlar ateşin üstüne yürüdü
Harita: 15 Temmuz Gecesi Kritik İller - İstanbul
Internal support for coup soldiers
A raid against the Istanbul Governorate
Atatürk Airport’s air traffic control tower raid
- The testimonies of Lieutenant Colonel Recep Karaçam, the commander of putschist soldiers, revealed that he had not known the route of the Istanbul Governorate and used navigation to find it.
- Soldiers who came to the Istanbul Governorate were astonished when they heard of the coup attempt on television. Their astonishment was shot by a workplace’s surveillance camera.
- Soldiers who came in front of the Sakarya Governorate with armored vehicles at 11.44 p.m. entered the governorate building. Armed soldiers checked the rooms in the building one by one.
Resul Nişancı learned that he had been taking part in the coup attempt on television at a market on the night of July 15, which astonished him. After having been arrested and staying in prison for eight days, he was discharged.
Earthmovers blocked the tanks
Attempt to occupy the Istanbul Stock Exchange
Raid on the AK Party Istanbul Provincial Directorate
Atatürk Airport under occupation
Bloody struggle in Taksim
Clashes in Harbiye