Turkey bans all academics from travelling abroad

Turkey has banned all academics from travelling abroad in an unprecedented move following last week’s failed military coup. Teachers have been told that they cannot travel abroad for work and those overseas have been told to return to Turkey quickly. A government official told Reuters that the ban was a temporary measure implemented to stop alleged coup plotters in universities from fleeing abroad.

A British English-language teacher at a state-run university in Istanbul said that foreign nationals have also been ordered to return to work.

“It’s summer break and we’ve all been summoned back to work as all annual leave has been cancelled,” a teacher who chose to remain anonymous told The Telegraph. “We aren’t allowed to leave Istanbul either.”

On Tuesday, the licenses of 21,000 teachers working in private schools were revoked, more than 15,000 employees at the education ministry were sacked, and the state-run higher education council demanded the resignation of 1,577 university deans. Over 50,000 people have now been arrested, sacked or suspended from jobs after Friday’s failed coup, in which around 230 people were killed.

The government has accused US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the coup, accusations he denies. Turkey is urging the US to extradite Gulen and the issue was raised during a recent phonecall between Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdodgan and US President Barack Obama. White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said that a decision on whether or not to extradite Gulen would be made under a treaty between the two countries.

Separately, Turkey has banned online access to the WikiLeaks website soon after it leaked about 300,000 emails sent by Erdogan’s ruling AK Party dating from 2000 to early July 2016.

WikiLeaks said that although the documents were obtained before the coup, the date of their publication was brought forward “in response to the government’s post-coup purges”. It insisted that the source of the emails was not linked to the coup plotters or to a rival political party or country.

Turkey’s military also announced on Wednesday that it has resumed cross-border strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, killing about 20 alleged militants. Anadolu Agency reported that F-16 jets targeted positions of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party in Iraq’s Hakurk region.