Defiant Turkey extends police powers, shutters schools after coup

Turkey pushed on Saturday with a sweeping crackdown against suspected plotters of its failedcoup, defiantly telling EU critics it had no choice but to root out hidden enemies.

Using new emergency powers, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's cabinet decreed that policecould now hold suspects for one month without charge, and announced it would shut down over 1,000 private schools it deems subversive.

A week after renegade soldiers tried to oust him with guns, tanks and F16s, Erdogan's government has detained over 13,000 people it suspects are state enemies, mainly soldiers but also police, judges, teachers and civil servants.

And after rounding up nearly 300 officers of the presidential guard over suspected links to thecoup, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that Turkey planned to disband the 2,500-strong unit, saying there was "no need" for the elite regiment.

As part of the mass arrests, police also detained a nephew of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, 75, whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the July 15 putsch and whose followers it labels a "terrorist" group.

Senior Gulen aide Hails Hanci was also arrested, a Turkish official said, describing him as a "right-hand man" to Gulen and responsible for transferring funds to the exiled preacher.

Fears that Erdogan will seek to further cement his rule and muzzle dissent through repression have strained ties with Western NATO allies and cast a darkening shadow over Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned that "a country that jails its own university professors and journalists imprisons its future".

Turkey's EU Minister Omer Celik insisted that European leaders don't appreciate the scale of the threat and lamented that none had come to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Turkey's leaders afterthe bloodshed of July 15.

"Come here and see how serious this is!" Celik told a foreign media briefing.

He added that Gulen was more dangerous than either the late Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden or Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.