TEMPO.CO, Ankara, Turkey- Turkish media reports have cited MIT, the national intelligence agency, as saying the coup has been defeated.
The MIT website was not immediately accessible from Turkey. MIT spokesman Nuh Yilmaz said that Gen. Hulusi Akar, the military chief of staff, was back in control. Yilmaz said, "Gen. Akar is back on top of his duties." He added: "Everything is returning to normal"
The coup attempt began late Friday, with a statement from the military saying it had seized control "to reinstall the constitutional order, democracy, human rights and freedoms, to ensure that the rule of law once again reigns in the country, for the law and order to be reinstated."
But the military did not appear unified, with top commanders taking to television to condemn the action and order troops back to their barracks.
"Those who are attempting a coup will not succeed. Our people should know that we will overcome this," Gen. Zekai Aksakalli, the commander of the military special forces, told the private NTV television by telephone.
Explosions, gunfire and a reported air battle between loyalist forces and coup supporters erupted in the capital throughout the night and Turks heeded the president's call to take to the streets to show support for his embattled government.
The state-run Anadolu Agency reported a bomb hit the Turkish parliament in Ankara. CNN-Turk television reported some police officers and parliament workers were hurt in the bomb attack.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview over FaceTime with the CNN Turk station, dismissed the military action as "an attempt at an uprising by a minority within our armed forces." His office declined to disclose his whereabouts, saying only that he was in a secure location.
The chaos capped a period of political turmoil in Turkey blamed on Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian rule, which has included a government shake up, a crackdown on dissidents and opposition media and renewed conflict in the mainly Kurdish areas of the southeast.
AP
