The meeting comes after Turkey discharged nearly 1,700 officers, including 149 generals and admirals, suspected of involvement in the failed July 15 coup against Erdogan.

Turkey’s top military commanders met Thursday to replace almost half of their generals in a radical shake-up after the failed coup, as authorities shut down dozens of media outlets in a widening crackdown.

In a separate move, a total of 131 newspapers, TV channels and other media outlets were being shut down.

The July 15 rebellion, which saw plotters bomb Ankara from war planes and wreak havoc with tanks on the streets of Istanbul in a bid to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has sparked a backlash affecting all aspects of Turkish life.

So far almost 16,000 people have been detained in a crackdown — the magnitude of which had caused international alarm.

Also Turkish authorities on Friday widened their post-coup crackdown to the business sector, detaining three top tycoons as part of investigations into the activities of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Twenty-one journalists also appeared in an Istanbul court after being rounded up in the sweeping purge, which has seen almost 16,000 people detained since the failed July 15 putsch.

But the scale of the crackdown has sparked international alarm, with the EU enlargement commissioner implicitly warning the bloc would freeze Turkey's accession talks if it violated the rule of law.

Also amnesty warns against unlawful crackdown on Turkish media.

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