The Turkish authorities accused a movement loyal to Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen of organising the July 2016 plot to bring down Erdogan. Gulen, who remains in the US, denied any involvement. Washington had so far resisted calls from the Turkish authorities to extradite the cleric. Since a state of emergency was declared on July 20 last year, purges were carried out to remove officials with alleged close ties to Gulen. On Friday, a further 7,000 officials, including 2,303 police officers, were dismissed from their positions, taking the number of public employees to have lost their jobs since the failed coup to about 140,000. (IANS)