Attempted Coup in Turkey Looks Like Internal Staging - Austrian MP

An attempt of a military coup in Turkey was too amateur and looks more like an internal staging instead of a real effort to take over the power, a lawmaker with the Social Democratic Party of Austria, Stefan Schennach, told Sputnik on Sunday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Late on Friday, Turkish authorities said that an attempted coup took place in the country. The coup was suppressed several hours later. Over 260 people were killed and hundreds were injured during the events, while nearly 3,000 people have already been detained.

"There is a little bit of bad taste in this story. Because why was everything prepared, the list of judges, the list of those people who are now arrested and not only from the military. So the bad taste is that staging [the coup] plays into the hands of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan to change the state more and more. This coup was a very dilettante coup," Schennach said.

"Also, it was the parliament and not the palace of Mr. Erdogan that was destroyed most. But when you want a coup, you do it differently," he added.

The lawmaker stressed that it was unacceptable to have a coup if the government had been elected democratically, adding that we have to see whether it was really a coup or an internal staging of an overthrow.

"It is too early to say, but we are very very worried about this situation," Schennach said, noting that the democratic institutions and norms in Turkey have suffered a lot.