On the night of July 15, Turkey passed a major democracy test that included a coup attempt, an uprising and the worst terror ever against its citizens. Thousands of Turkish citizens who took to the streets that night — despite the warnings of the coup plotters to stay indoors and obey the curfew — gave the clearest message: Those who came with elections, will leave with elections.
The coup attempt saw the use of tanks, heavy armor, and assault helicopters and warplanes, mostly in Ankara and Istanbul; 161 people were killed, 1,440 wounded and 2,839 soldiers of various ranks, mostly conscript privates, were detained. In addition, 104 coup forces were killed.
On the morning of July 17, as this article was penned, clashes had ended but detentions were continuing. The last bastions of the coup at the Chief of Staff headquarters in Ankara and at Akincilar air base, which is 20 kilometers (roughly 12 miles) from Ankara, were recovered and life was quickly returning to normal.
The first indications that something was happening on the night of July 15 around 10 p.m. local time was when the media began reporting the closure by soldiers and tanks of two bridges in Istanbul that link Asia to Europe. Turkish air space was declared closed and military planes were in the sky. Like everyone else, I first thought that Turkey was experiencing another plane hijacking. But soon reports of clashes at the bridges and strategic points in Ankara and Istanbul indicated that this was something very different. What it was became clearer when Prime Minister Binali Yildirim appeared on major TV networks around 11 p.m. He said it was a coup attempt by a faction of the military in an attempt to take over the political rule of the country. Later, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on live TV that the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETO) led by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind the coup attempt, and called on the people to take to the streets to save democracy. Civilians responded bravely and came out and marched to the areas where the clashes were taking place, especially in Istanbul and Ankara. As time passed, a more dangerous situation developed. For the first time in its history, Turkey witnessed the bombing of its parliament by F-16s. A Turkish F-16 shot down a Turkish Sikorsky helicopter, and officers in a Black Hawk helicopter sought asylum in Greece.
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