On Saturday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan appeared to mobs of supporters at Istanbul's main Ataturk airport early on Saturday after what officials said had been a coup attempt by a faction within the armed forces.
President Erdogan, said while addressing the crowd that "no power is above the national will". "I am with my people. I'm not going anywhere," he told the cheering crowd , footage on broadcaster NTV showed.
On Friday they had seized power but President Tayyip Erdogan vowed that the attempted coup would be put down and crowds answered his call to defy a curfew order and take to the streets to support him, said Turkish troop.
If successful, the overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, would mark one of the biggest shifts in the Middle East in years, transforming one of the most important US allies while war rages on its border. If it fails, the coup attempt could still destabilise a pivotal country in the region.
"We will overcome this," Erdogan said, speaking on a video call to a mobile phone held up to the camera by an announcer on the Turkish sister station of CNN. He called on his followers to take to the streets to defend his government and said the coup plotters would pay a heavy price.