Turkish military 'not weakened' by coup attempt: Presidential spokesman

The failed coup attempt in Turkey will not harm military operations against the Islamic State (IS) or Kurdish militants, a presidential spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Istanbul that despite the arrest of 100 generals - or around one-third of the country's 328 generals - the military was "not weakened" in its fight against IS and affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the southeast.

He added that "all arrested generals have been replaced as we speak" and that only a "few rebel soldiers [are] still on the run". He said that 28 soldiers had been involved in the attack on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his resort in Marmaris on Saturday - 14 of them were arrested on Tuesday.

Kalin also revealed that his government received intelligence about the coup six hours before the attempt was carried out.

"We will take all legal steps to ensure the coup attempt doesn't happen again," he told reporters.

In the wake of the failed attempt, concerns have been raised about its impact on military operations given the subsequent mass arrest of alleged coup plotters.

Shortly after the coup was announced, reports began to circulate suggesting that the Turkish army was pulling out of northern Iraq where forces had been stationed at a military base. However, Kurdish Peshmerga forces later denied that any forces had withdrawn.

Kalin announced that the National Security Council would its have first post-coup meeting on Wednesday where "future steps will be discussed".

Despite their opposition to the Justice and Development party (AKP)-led government, the PKK and its affiliates portrayed themselves as neutral over the coup attempt, which they have branded as a conflict between two sides of the same "fascist" forces.

"Portraying Tayyip Erdogan and the fascist AKP dictator as if they were democratic after this coup attempt is an approach even more dangerous than the coup attempt itself," said the umbrella Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) in a statement on Saturday.

More than 200 people were killed and over 1,400 wounded on Friday and Saturday in the violence that followed an attempt by a faction of the Turkish army to seize control of the country, most of them civilians.

The Turkish government has blamed the attempted coup on supporters within the army of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, an ally-turned-enemy of President Erdogan currently residing in Pennsylvania.

Government officials have called on the US to extradite Gulen to Turkey where he would face trial for masterminding the plot - an allegation Gulen has strongly denied.