Some 350 Turkish police officers have been sacked or reassigned overnight in Ankara in a massive shakeup of the police force, local media report.
Some 350 Turkish police officers have been sacked or reassigned overnight in Ankara in a massive shakeup of the police force, local media report.
250 of the vacant positions were filled with new officers, most o
f them from outside the Turkish capital.
The move comes in the midst of an ongoing political crisis in Turkey, which was triggered in mid-December by arrests of businessmen close to the government, including relatives of some ministers, on allegations of corruption.
The shakeup comes a day after PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested the retrial of hundreds of army officers convicted of plotting a coup against his government.
Erdogan cracked down on the military with the help of the Hizmet movement of the US-based Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen, which has strong ties in the police and the judiciary.
Now Erdogan’s followers accuse Gulen of using the same leverage against his government.
