AKIPRESS.COM - Turkey’s post-coup crackdown took a more sinister turn on Tuesday after tens of thousands of teachers were fired and all the country’s university deans were told they faced suspension, reports The Telegraph.

The licenses of 21,000 staff working in private schools were revoked, more than 15,000 employees at the education ministry were sacked, and the state-run higher education council demanded the resignation of 1,577 university deans.

The purge is part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s heavy-handed attempt to root out supporters of Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-based cleric accused of orchestrating the failed revolt, whose movement is accused of infiltrating state institutions.

Ankara says the reclusive Gülen, who wields enormous influence in Turkey through loyalists in various apparatus as well as a private school network school, hatched the plot to end Erdoğan's 13 years in power from his home in Pennsylvania.

"I'm sorry but this parallel terrorist organization will no longer be an effective pawn for any country," Binali Yıldırım, Turkey’s prime minister, said. "We will dig them up by their roots so that no clandestine terrorist organization will have the nerve to betray our blessed people again."

On Tuesday he handed to the U.S. a dossier of what he said was evidence of Gülen’s involvement in the mutiny and called for his swift extradition.

The suspensions followed Monday’s purge targeting other ministries and state institutions.

The employees include 9,000 police, 2,745 judges, 8,777 from the interior ministry 1,500 from the finance ministry, 257 staff working at the prime minister’s office, at least 100 from the National Intelligence Agency MIT, 399 from the family and social affairs ministry and 492 from the religious affairs ministry.

Officials signaled that the country was to undergo further major changes in the coming days. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the foreign minister, canceled his visit to Washington to attend a National Security Council meeting tomorrow, where Erdoğan said that he would issue an “important announcement” following the meeting.

There was speculation that Erdoğan might try to put in place a state of emergency so as to take full control of all state institutions.

“The focus tomorrow will be on how we can deal with the Gülenist terror organization in a more effective way. The current way does not work. There are some laws that don’t allow us to deal with this properly and we’ll discuss that,” an advisor to Yıldırım said.