Muhammet Safi, the director of Turkey’s Presidential Archives, has called for the arming of every household for the defense of Turkey, the Diken news website reported on Friday.
“It’s necessary to launch a project to arm each household with an automatic rifle and 1,000 bullets,” said Safi in a Twitter message, quoting a tweet of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that said: “We won’t be able to sleep peacefully unless we do everything ourselves in the area of defense.”
Due to reactions on social media, Safi deleted his tweet and locked his Twitter account to non-followers.
Safi, who was appointed to the Presidential Archives in 2014 following the election of Erdoğan as president, received three promotions in one year.
According to media reports, an increasing number of citizens have been arming themselves following a failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15.
Last week, Mehmet Aybek, a member of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) youth wing who shared a photo of an MP5 machine gun on Facebook, said he was awaiting orders from President Erdoğan to kill.
In October Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek said “No need to keep it a secret,” in remarks on a live TV show, going on to say that people are armed in large numbers out of fear of a second coup attempt.
In reference to citizens, Gökçek said that ¨they realize the whole world is setting a trap for Turkey,” reiterating the pro-government argument of “foreign powers” undermining the regime in the country.