Turkish authorities have already launched a series of mass purges of the armed forces, police, judiciary and education system. Picture: AP/Burhan Ozbilici.

Turkish authorities also detained a nephew of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Ankara of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt, the Anadolu state news agency reported. A restructuring of Turkey’s once untouchable military also drew closer, with a planned meeting between Mr Erdogan and the already purged top brass brought forward by several days.

The schools and other institutions are suspected by Turkish authorities of having links to Gulen, who has many followers in Turkey.

Gulen denies any involvement in the coup attempt in which at least 246 people were killed.

His nephew, Muhammed Sait Gulen, was detained in the northeastern city of Erzurum and will be brought to the capital Ankara for questioning, Anadolu reported.

Critics of Mr Erdogan fear he is using the abortive coup to wage an indiscriminate crackdown on dissent. The foundations targeted include, for example, the Association of Judges and Prosecutors, a secular group that criticised a recent judicial law drafted by Mr Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party.

Turkey does not plan to extend emergency rule beyond a period of three months following the failed coup, but will do so if necessary, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

“Our goal is that it shouldn’t be extended, but if the need arises it may of course be extended,” he said in an interview with the ATV television station.

In his decree, published by the Anadolu state news agency, Mr Erdogan also extended to a maximum of 30 days from four days the period in which some suspects can be detained.

Mr Erdogan, a popular but polarising figure who has dominated Turkish politics since 2003, declared the state of emergency late on Wednesday.

Turkish authorities have already launched a series of mass purges of the armed forces, police, judiciary and education system, targeting followers of Gulen, who operates an extensive network of schools and charitable foundations.

The first decree signed by Erdogan authorises the closure of 1043 private schools, 1229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities and 35 medical institutions over suspected links to the Gulen movement, the Anadolu agency said.

Parliament must still approve the decree but requires only a simply majority, which the government has.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s EU Minister Omer Celik has 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 after the bloodshed of July 15.

“Come here and see how serious this is!” Mr 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.

Mr Celik insisted that Turkey, despite the turmoil, remained committed to its long-term bid to join the European Union, and would honour a landmark deal with the EU to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

“We don’t believe this is the end of the road, it is time to start brand-new momentum,” Celik told reporters in Ankara, when asked if the EU membership bid was still a strategic aim.

Mr Erdogan struck a darker tone, telling France 24 television that “for the past 53 years Europe has been making us wait”, and that no EU candidate country “has had to suffer like we have had to suffer”.

He rejected the European criticism of his iron-fisted response to the coup, charging that “they are biased, they are prejudiced, and they will continue to act in this prejudiced manner towards Turkey”.

Ankara has insisted that the measures would not add up to an attack on democracy, arguing that they were no different to those France had taken after a series of bloody jihadist attacks.

Amid the global criticism, Turkey for the first time since the coup released a large group of detainees, 1,200 low-ranking soldiers, saying it wanted to swiftly sort out those who had fired on the people from those who had not.

Reuters, AFP