Turkey to shut down coup plot air base, says PM

ANKARA

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Friday said military bases used by coup plotters during the July 15 attempt will be closed.

"The Akinci Air Base in Ankara, center for the heinous coup plot, will be closed", Yildirim told a crowd in Kazan district of Ankara near the airbase.

"The base will be transformed into a place to commemorate our martyrs", Yildirim said. "We are closing all the barracks in Ankara and Istanbul that sent out coup tanks [and] helicopters."

Yildirim vowed U.S.-based preacher Fetullah Gulen, accused of masterminding the coup attempt, would be extradited to Turkey. Gulen has been living in Pennsylvania since 1999.

"We will absolutely bring back that head of Fetullah Terrorist Organization, the [one] responsible for this coup who is now in the U.S.," Yildirim said.

"We will bring him back to Turkey."

Turkish government says the July 15 coup attempt was carried out by the Gulen-led Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), martyring 246 people and injuring more than 2,100 others.

The failed putsch prompted a nationwide probe to eliminate FETO sleeper cells that infiltrated into state institutions, including the judiciary and the army.

(Reporting by A. Eda Unlu Ozen, Cuneyt Ates and Sinan Uslu; Writing by Can Erozden)