John Kerry to visit Turkey more than month after coup plot

Turkey has announced that the US secretary of state, John Kerry, is to visit Turkey later this month - almost six weeks after a failed military coup.

Kerry's Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, announced the visit during an interview with broadcaster TGRT Haber on Friday.

It would be the first visit by a top Western dignitary since the 15 July attempt to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with Ankara complaining about of a lack of western support as it mounts a major crackdown which has affected tens of thousands of people.

The visit is scheduled for 24 August, Cavusoglu said.

Meanwhile, Turkey's ruling party on Friday ordered a purge from its ranks of supporters of US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused of plotting last month's failed coup.

The "urgent clean-up in the party organisation" was aimed at expelling those linked with the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation, as Ankara calls the movement blamed for the 15 July attempted putsch, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The attempted putsch has strained Ankara's relations with Washington.

Erdogan has called for the extradition of Gulen, who denies involvement in the plot. The US has said it would consider an extradition request backed by firm evidence.

So far, Turkey has sent two sets of documents to Washington detailing his alleged involvement and on Thursday, it issued a warrant for his arrest on grounds of "ordering the July 15 coup", state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday said Washington was still "in the process of going through" the documents.

He said the first batch did not appear to be "a formal extradition request" for Gulen.

"But we subsequently received more documents. We're looking through them, and I think they're trying to figure out whether this is the full request. And I don't think they have reached that determination yet."

It comes two days after Erdogan accused the West of “supporting terror and standing by the coup plotters” as Ankara stepped up the rhetoric against Washington and Europe

Speaking during a televised speech, Erdogan said: "Those who we imagined to be friends are standing by the coup plotters and by the terrorists. Is the West on the side of democracy or on the side of terror?"

His comments were echoed by other leading politicians opposed to the coup, including Melih Gokcek, Ankara’s mayor, who said the United States must extradite Gulen.

He said: “I don’t want to believe that the US is complicit but the true test will be if they extradite Gulen. We have a terrorist living there.”

Gokcek pointed to contradictory statements by US officials as evidence that they have something to hide – or at the very least were better informed than they cared to let on.

He also said that Western condemnation of the coup was tepid and unacceptable. “No Western official called me to commiserate. Not even one of their ambassadors attended the funeral of one of the dead civilians here.”