Following the coup attempt, the Erdogan government rounded up some 3,000 military personnel and another 3,000 judges and prosecutors suspected of involvement in the plot. Erdogan also said that capital punishment could be reinstated in the country.
"The reaction of Erdogan tells us that we have to stop immediately any kind of negotiations with him concerning Turkey joining the EU. We also have to think about sanctions against Turkey," Georg Mayer from the Freedom Party of Austria said.
He stressed that Turkey could not be a partner of the European Union and Brussels should not have any kind of a refugee deal with Ankara, as the latter fails to uphold democratic standards and the rule of law.
"I don’t think we can have a deal with a government like that, because at the end [of the day] it is not a democratic government – they have military revolt and on the next day a list of 3,000 judges that you assure were involved in that military revolution, so I don’t think the things are really going well there, so there should be no kind of negotiations or deal with that government, and we should think about sanctions," he said.
On Saturday morning, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim stated that all coup supporters had been identified and would be apprehended as the country returns to normal. Over 290 people were killed and at least 1,400 injured during the attempted coup, according to the country's foreign ministry.
The rush with which the perpetrators were imprisoned sparked doubts as to whether the coup was real or fabricated.
