erdgon turkeyTurkey said it had dismissed a further 10,000 civil servants and closed 15 more media outlets over suspected links with terrorist organisations and US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup in July.

More than 100,000 people had already been sacked or suspended and 37,000 arrested since the abortive putsch in an unprecedented crackdown President Tayyip Erdogan says is crucial for wiping out the network of Gulen from the state apparatus.

Thousands more academics, teachers, health workers, prison guards and forensics experts were among the latest to be removed from their posts through two new executive decrees published on the Official Gazette late SATURDAY. Opposition parties described the move as a coup in itself.