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Erdogan was speaking at a rally in Istanbul on Saturday to mark one year since a failed coup attempt that left 240 dead.

"First of all we will chop off the heads of those traitors," Erdogan told the rally.

Read more:Questions abound, one year after Turkey's coup that wasn't

This prompted calls from the crowds that capital punishment should be restored, to which he said: "I will sign it" if parliament passes a bill on resuming executions, a move that would likely end any lingering hopes Ankara has of joining the EU.

"I spoke to the prime minister and [...] when they appear in court, let's make them appear in uniform suits like in Guantanamo,"Erdogan added.

"They showed no mercy when they pointed their guns at my people," Erdogan said. "What did my people have? They had their flags - just as they do today - and something much more important: They had their faith."

"Nobody who betrays this nation can remain unpunished."

The Turkish president later flew back to Ankara to take part in late-night commemorations in the capital. Erdogan spoke outside of the parliament building, which had been bombed by warplanes during the coup attempt, telling thousands of supports in the crowd: "Our nation showed the whole world what a nation we are on July 15."

Read more:Turkey referendum: Could Erdogan resume executions?

Erdogan also repeated calls in Ankara that he would approve "without any hesitation" any legislation that would reinstate capital punishment in Turkey.

On Saturday, Turks observed the anniversary of last years failed coup, commemorating the nearly 250 people who lost their lives during the event and celebrating the perseverance of the nation. The largest crowds gathered at Istanbuls Bosphorus Bridge and in central Ankara, pictured above, where demonstrators marched to Turkeys parliament to attend a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Among the crowds, were many who personally confronted the military on the night of the coup and had made personal sacrifices to defend the democratically elected government. In contrast, opponents of President Erdogan mostly stayed home, viewing the ongoing purges and Turkeys extended state of emergency as affronts to the nations democratic principles that have undermined the rule of law.

A banner in Ankara reads Our Democracy Watch Continues, in reference to democracy watch rallies that took place nightly during the month following the coup attempt. One year on, some Erdogan supporters believe followers of Fethullah Gulen, who the government blames for organizing the putsch, are still working in state offices and may be plotting a second coup attempt.

Sahibe, 45, a store clerk not pictured above, spoke in favor of the ongoing purges, which have laid off more than 150,000 people over the last year and jailed about 50,000. She said innocent citizens had nothing to worry about and that she hopes the state of emergency continues until we cleanse the roots Gulenists have made in our country.

Yet not all attendees at Saturdays rallies supported the year-old state of emergency. I am anxious about the current situation because it gives soldiers the authority to do anything they want, said Ahmed, who did not give a surname. If there was a referendum on extending the state of emergency, I think the majority of people would vote against it.

A pro-government demonstrator holds a flag featuring Erdogan with the words: Stay strong, the people are with you. Reflecting on Erdogans leadership, a taxi driver near the rally said, May god protect us if this man is re-elected in 2019. Hell bring sharia law to Turkey, which is no problem for men, but it will make life miserable for women.

Those who didnt support the rallies kept their distance, such as Seyma Urper, a human rights lawyer working in the southeastern city of Sirnak. "Since the coup attempt, most employees in my municipality were dismissed and the mayor was replaced with a state-appointed trustee," Urper said. "We have lost many rights and its getting harder to do my job."

Erol Kanmaz, not pictured above, said his son was shot in the leg on the night of the coup attempt and spent the subsequent six months in the hospital to undergo four surgeries. I came out tonight to protect my homeland, Kanmaz said. Those Gulenist traitors tried to infiltrate our military, but now our country is stronger than ever.

Sureyya Kalayci (left) displays a homemade t-shirt stating: A call is enough. Call us and well come. Tell us to die, we will die. On 15 July 2016, Kalayci and his son Ahmet (right), blocked military vehicles in Ankaras streets, helping to foil the attempted coup. If it wasnt for the people, the military wouldve taken over our country, Kalayci said.

A demonstrator holds up a scarf reading: We are the grandchildren of the Ottomans. Many people in the crowds on Saturday night expressed support for President Erdogans policies and believed he was the only leader that could restore Turkeys stance as an international power, which was tarnished with the fall of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago.

Author: Diego Cupolo

Cellphone users forced to hear message

Anyone who made a mobile phone call in Turkey on Saturday was forced to listen to a recording of Erdoganconveying them his good wishes first.

Omer Fatih Sayan, the head of the information and communications authority, confirmed Erdogan recorded the message.

Erdogan is heard saying in his message: "As your president I congratulate you on the July 15 Democracy and National Unity Day, I wish God's mercy and grace for our martyrs and good health for our veterans."

The Martyrs' Bridge was renamed for those killed

'Darkest night'

Lawmakers and Erdogan had earlier gathered in the parliament to remember the night of July 15 when thousands of unarmed civilians took to the streets to defend Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, first as prime minister and since 2014 as president.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called the coup attempt a dark moment for Turkey, with deadly clashes between the people and rogue military forces.

"It has been exactly one year since Turkey's darkest and longest night was transformed into a bright day, since an enemy occupation turned into the people's legend," he said.

"Our people did not leave sovereignty to their enemies and took hold of democracy to the death," he went on, as Erdogan and members of opposition parties looked on. "These monsters will surely receive the heaviest punishment they can within the law."

Later in the day, tens of thousands of people, many waving red Turkish flags,took part in a march converging on the July 15 Martyrs' Bridge.

Erdogan earlier joined the crowds and unveiled a memorial to honor those who died opposing the coup.

Deep-lying tensions

But the cordial ceremonial unity belies tensions barely beneath the surface. Beyond the groundswell of nationalism, the coup's greatest legacy has been the far-reaching purge on multiple sectors of Turkish society.

About 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the civil service and private sector. More than 50,000 have been detained for alleged links to the putsch.

A fresh wave of firings came on Friday, when the government announced it had dismissed another 7,000 police, civil servants and academics for suspected links to the Muslim cleric it blames for the putsch.

Turkey's jailed journalists

Erdogan and his government have repeatedly blamed US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for the coup plot, though they have offered little evidence to substantiate their claims.

Government critics, including human rights groups and some Western governments, have accused Erdogan of using the state of emergency introduced shortly after the coup to target opposition figures including activists, pro-Kurdish politicians and journalists.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was represented by its deputy chairman at Saturday's events because the party's two co-leaders are in jail - as are local members of the human rights group Amnesty International.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says nearly 160 journalists have been arrested over the past year, making Turkey the largest jailer of journalists in the world.

Kilicdaroglu: "Justice has been destroyed"

During theceremony in parliament, the head of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) slammed what he called the erosion of democracy following the coup.

"This parliament, which withstood bombs, has been rendered obsolete and its authority removed," said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, referring to an April referendum that Erdogan narrowly won, giving him sweeping executive powers.

"In the past year, justice has been destroyed. Instead of rapid normalization, a permanent state of emergency has been implemented," he added.

Earlier this month Kilicdaroglu finished a 25-day, 425 km (265 mile) "justice march" from the capital Ankara to Istanbul, to protest the detention of a CHP lawmaker. The march was largely ignored by the pro-government media, but culminated in a huge rally in Istanbul against the government crackdown.

bik/tj/jbh/dm/aw (Reuters, dpa, AP)

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Erdogan: 'No mercy for traitors' as Turkey marks coup anniversary - Deutsche Welle

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the failed coup against Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an event he has since used to further alienate his opponents. This alienation is reinforced by the authoritarian chamber that Erdogan inhabits, a result of both his upbringing as a pious, yet second-class citizen in once-secularist Turkey, as well as his consolidation of power since 2002, when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) took power in Ankara.

As I explain in my book, The New Sultan, Erdogan was born in 1954 to a poor family in Kasimpasa, a gritty neighborhood along Istanbuls Golden Horn, then a polluted waterway overflowing with sewage. He grew up in a deeply religious family at a time when Turkey had a staunchly secularist system, which banished all forms of religiosity to the private sphere, and in which people like Erdogan and his family felt profoundly marginalized.

Even Imam Hatip, the publicly funded religious school Erdogan attended, received second-class treatment in secularist Turkey. In a 2013 interview, Erdogan professed feeling othered along with his Imam Hatip peers, describing how he was repeatedly told that his education would disqualify him from any profession other than washing the bodies of the deada task traditionally reserved for the clergy in Islam.

When Erdogan entered politics after graduation, his marginalization did not end. The countrys secularist courts, in decisions backed by the secularist military, businesses, and media, shut down three Islamist parties he joined between the mid-1970s and the late-1990s. The courts also sent Erdogan to jail in 1998 for reciting an allegedly incendiary poem, which they said undermined Turkeys secularist system.

In 2001, Erdogan established the AKP as a reformed Islamist party. It took advantage of the implosion of the countrys secularist parties, which stemmed largely from the Turkish economic crisis of the same year, to win the 2002 parliamentary elections. Even then, Erdogans troubles with the secularist system did not end: he was barred from becoming prime minister because of his jail term. In 2003, this penalty was finally lifted, and Erdogan took office as head of government. Subsequently, he delivered economic growth, building himself a power base among conservative Turks.

In 2014, he became Turkeys president in 2014. This past April, he won a referendum to become an executive-style president, assuming the offices of president, prime minister, and head of the ruling AKP party. He has thus become the most unassailable leader in Turkey since the countrys first multi-party elections in 1950.

Still, Erdogan carries a chip on his shoulder: a deep grudge against secular Turks, as if to remind them of how unkindly they treated him for nearly five decades as a poor, pious youth from a gritty Istanbul neighborhood and later as an Islamist politician.

Erdogan has rarely let his guard down against his secular opponents, even as their powers have waned next to his. This is a result of his persistent fear that one day those opponents could push him back across the tracks. His biggest strength as a politician and biggest weakness as a citizen is that, despite his tight control over the country, he feels like an outsider.

It doesnt help that, in order to rally his right-wing base, Erdogan has demonized and cracked down on demographic groups that are unlikely to vote for him, including not only his former adversaries, the secularists, but also Alevis (who are liberal Muslims), liberals, social democrats, leftists, and Kurdish nationalists. This strategy has built broad constituencies that oppose him vehemently.

July 15, 2016, only sharpened Erdogans dilemma. Although the initial post-coup purges and arrests targeted members of the conservative Gulen movement erstwhile Erdogan allies who seem to have turned against him in the coupErdogan has since cast a wide net, arresting anyone who opposes him. He has jailed 50,000 people since the coup, purging another 140,000. His opponents now loathe him.

The problem for Erdogan is that these opponents now also make up nearly half of the Turkish population. He won the April referendum by only a razor-thin majority, with 49 percent of the population voting against him.

Erdogan fears that if he allows democracy to flourish in Turkey again, his opponents could vote him out and then make him pay for his transgressions against them. Maybe they will not do the latter, but Erdogan is so deeply molded by his past that he will not take the risk. This is why Turkish democracy is in deep trouble: it is stuck in Erdogans authoritarian chamber.

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The Loneliness of Recep Tayyip Erdogan - The Atlantic

Written by Shubhajit Roy | New Delhi | Published:July 15, 2017 4:04 am Erdogan made the remarks ahead of talks with India. File

Almost two-and-a-half months after Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stirred a hornets nest by advocating a multilateral dialogue to settle the Jammu and Kashmir question, Turkeys ambassador Sakir Ozkan Torunlar on Friday said that Erdogans comments were wrongly translated from Turkish to English, which gave a different meaning to his remarks.

According to Torunlar, Erdogan had said in an interview to Wion TV channel, Look, in order not to give opportunity to further casualties, especially the bilateral dialogues, could be also multilateral dialogues. This, the Turkish envoy said, was different from what was translated and broadcast which said, We shouldnt allow more casualties to occur. We should strengthen multilateral dialogue. We can stay involved through multilateral dialogues.

The Turkish Presidents comments had appeared on the day of his arrival, which was followed by a weekend, and the remarks were not corrected immediately as they did not catch the eyes and the attention of the Presidents press office and the Turkish embassy in Delhi, Torunlar said. But, on Friday, as he interacted with some reporters on the eve of the first anniversary of the thwarted coup attempt in Turkey on July 15 last year, the Turkish ambassador said that the President had only suggested that they can play a role if requested.

When asked if the issue was raised and discussed between the two leaders, Torunlar said he will have to check if he can share the contents of the discussion. Speaking about the presence of members of the Fetullah Gulen group in India, he said that we advise all our friends to be vigilant. Whether the Indian government has cooperated with the Turkish government on cracking down on the Gulenists in India, he said, There is a serious and very good cooperation between Indian and Turkish authorities. We are happy with the cooperation.

Ahead of arriving in Delhi on April 30 for a two-day visit, Erdogan had said, this Kashmir question, this question saddens us deeply. It upsets both the countries involved. And surmounting the Kashmiri challenge will contribute tremendously to global peace. For the last seven decades, this question has not been settled. And I believe doing so will provide relief to both the countries (India and Pakistan).

Erdogan had also said that Pakistan was willing to settle the issue. Nawaz Sharif is a man of good intentions. I heard him personally speak of his will to settle this question once and for all, he had said.

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Turkish envoy: Erdogan remarks on J&K issue wrongly translated - The Indian Express

ANKARA: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued a resounding warning to those seeking to create strife or threaten democracy in the country by saying that those caught will "pay a heavy price."

Erdogan also stressed that the state of emergency established nationwide since the attempted coup on July 15 last year, will remain in place until all threats have been nullified.

Addressing his supporters at an event to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the bloody attempted coup, here yesterday, Erdogan promised that there will be no let up against those seeking to sow discord in Turkey.

"We will make sure they pay a heavy price so that they will no longer threaten the peace and sovereignty in Turkey.

"The state of emergency will only be rescinded when we have achieved our objective in battling terror," he said.

The Turkish president also questioned the motive of several western nations in raising the subject of 'human rights' on behalf of the coup plotters, who are currently facing prosecution in the courts.

The Turkish government has identified the Fetullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO) as the architects of the coup attempt. FETO, said the government, had comprised members from various backgrounds, including military personnel, businessmen and even members of the judiciary.

"They (the countries) question about preserving the rights of these coup plotters but yet, share no empathy towards Turks who died or have lost loved ones in defending the country from those seeking to take it by force."

Turkey, he said, always prioritizes human rights and the principles of democracy, the latter of which was most evident when millions of Turks took to the streets on the night of July 15 to combat the coup plotters. Some 250 Turkish people lost their lives in combating the armed coup plotters.

Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus took aim at FETO, which he said has spread its roots abroad by hiding behind the guise of being a charity organisation.

FETO, he said, spread their influence by opening schools in various countries, and educating children of future leaders.

Kurtulmus said he would not name the countries, but expressed concern over FETO's tactics.

"Our concern is that they won't try to seize Turkey by force, like what they did on July 15, 2016 but instead, try to influence policy makers to further their interests."

Kurtulmus as such cautioned other nations not to regard lightly l the threat posed by FETO, and stressed that Turkey is ready to extend any assistance to ensure the organisation is brought down.

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Erdogan on eve of July 15 coup attempt: Plotters will 'pay a heavy price' - New Straits Times Online

Turkish politician Meral Akener at her home in Istanbul in May 2017.Rena Effendi for TIME

Meral Aksener doesnt run from fights. Turkeys former interior minister is known informally as asena , or she-wolf. When the country's military took steps in 1997 to remove the government from power, she took a stand against its leaders. A general threatened to have the young lawmaker impaled on an oily spike that well put in front of the ministry. Testifying about the conversation in court in 2013, she brushed the comment off. I did what I was supposed to do, she said.

As she once defied the military, her supporters hope she can stand in the way of the collapse of Turkeys democracy, one year after another attempted coup . A veteran nationalist, Aksener campaigned vigorously against a constitutional overhaul proposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that is set to replace Turkeys parliamentary system with one dominated by his own powerful presidency. Erdogan won a narrow, disputed victory in the referendum on April 16, but Aksener won herself a far higher profile. She drew throngs to raucous campaign rallies around the country where she urged the public to vote no. Huge crowds chanted, Prime Minister Meral!

Now, Akseners name (pronounced Ak-she-ner) has been whispered as a possible challenger to Erdogan in the presidential election expected in 2019. Aides reveal to TIME she is planning to announce a new political party. Speaking to TIME at her Istanbul home in May, her face lit up when she spoke about how she rattles Erdogan. I ruin his comfort zone, she says, because he knows I am a real competitor.

Few would dare stand up to this regime. After a combined 14 years as prime minister and president, Erdogan has acted to suppress nearly every source of opposition, sidelining other leaders within his party, jailing opposition lawmakers, and censoring critical news organizations. He has done so while winning a series of elections, modeling a style of politics similar to the conservative brand of populism that swept Europe and America in 2016.

The repression accelerated in the aftermath of the failed and bloody coup one year ago, on July 15, 2016. More than 50,000 people have been detained so far, including journalists, students, and civil servants. The crackdown has intensified lately. In July, police arrested 10 human rights activists including Amnesty Internationals Turkey director on terrorism charges.

Opposition politicians are not immune. In June, a court sentenced an opposition lawmaker to 25 years in prison in connection with a government leak case, one of a dozen now behind bars. The leader of Turkeys largest opposition CHP party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, staged a 280-mile protest march from Ankara to Istanbul in response, that culminated in a vast justice rally in Istanbul that was the largest show of opposition in years. This is the era of dictatorship, he told the crowd.

But the grey-haired, bespectacled opposition leader is in poor position to mount a genuine challenge to Erdogan. His secular-establishment CHP has been unable to win a national election for 15 years, and observers of Turkish politics think he lacks the ruthlessness to take on the President. Even people in my family, they think Kemal Kilicdaroglu is a great guy, but he just doesnt know how to play Erdogans game. And to beat him, you have to play his game, says Gonul Tol, the director of the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Meral Aksener on the other hand, the way she conveys the message of those who are opposed to Erdogan, or who are uncomfortable with his rule, I think shes done a great job in terms of communicating that message.

Aksener poses a unique threat to Erdogan because her brand of politics draws from a similar pool of pro-business, religious, and nationalist voters as the president. She is unapologetically conservative, and has been called the Turkish answer to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen . She is hawkish toward Kurdish separatists. She says she would allow Turkeys three million Syrian refugees to remain in the country, but she has unspecified concerns about their presence. Still, she insists she can attract support from across the political spectrum, including Kurds, noting her frequent campaign visits to the Kurdish-majority southeast. She also rejects any comparison between her style of politics and the racism of the European far right. We dont do politics based on race or ethnicity, she says. Our definition of the nation is based on shared memories, share ties, and shared joys.

Yet her principled opposition to Erdogan's constitutional power-grab allowed her to expand her appeal to disaffected members of AKP and even to some left-leaning voters. Unlike the secular republican Kilicdaroglu, who has been criticized for failing to reach beyond his base of elite urbanites, Aksener has the potential to undermine the presidents coalition. She is a major political threat to President Erdogan, says Aykan Erdemir, a liberal Turkish politician who served in parliament with Aksener. Aksener could be an attractive candidate to Turkeys center-right electorate, and so she has the potential to steal voters from Erdogan and the AKP.

Born in 1956 in Izmit, a medium-sized city outside of Istanbul, Aksener is the descendant of immigrants from Greece. She developed an interest in politics as a young girl when Izmit elected Turkeys first woman mayor, Layla Atakan. After earning a PhD in history, she quit her post as a university department chair in 1994, winning a seat in parliament a year later as a member of the secular conservative True Path Party.

Within a few years of entering parliament, Aksener became a central player in Turkeys national political drama. She was appointed interior minister in a coalition government led by Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. It was an era of political violence, as the Turkish state waged an increasingly dirty war with Kurdish separatists. The tumult came to a crescendo in the winter and spring of 1997 when the military issued an ultimatum to the government in what became known as the postmodern coup.

It was then that Aksener made her stand against the armed forces meddling, rebuffing General Cetin Saners threat to impale her on a spike. She established her independence from Turkeys military, which has pushed aside four elected governments since 1960. She also declined to press charges against Saner, showing restraint that stands in contrast with Erdogans ferocious response to the 2016 coup. She was not vengeful, which is something you cannot say about Erdogan, says Erdemir.

Then and now, Aksener continues to insist on a core conservative principle: rule of law. Her insistence on institutions and procedure stands in contrast with Erdogans emotional populism. Erdogans world is black and white, she says. I dont believe in the rule of right and wrong. I believe in the rule of law, she says. She also criticizes Erdogans traditionalist views on women. He prefers us at home, she says.

But Aksener has a long association with some of the harder edges of Turkish politics. After she was forced out of office in the 1997 coup, Aksener re-entered parliament 10 years later as a member of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP), a party that traces its origins to the brutal past of Turkeys far-right. The partys youth movement, known as the Grey Wolves, was implicated in a series of assassinations during the mayhem of the 1970s and 80s, when the country was roiled by a previous military coup and widespread political violence. To this day, MHP members still flash the Grey Wolves salute, forming a wolfs head with one hand, extending the index finger and pinky to form ears.

Aksener herself flashes the grey wolf signal at her rallies, and her politics reflects her long-held nationalism. In the past she has opposed peace talks with the militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkeys adversary in a long-running war. Asked to reassure ethnic minority voters about her vision for the country, she suggests that Turkeys current legal framework is enough to address minorities needs. Every minority living in Turkey is protected under the laws and agreements, she says.

Aksener joined the MHP when chairman Devlet Bahceli rebranded the party in 2007, shunning the groups violent past and presenting a more professional face. Elected again to parliament that year, she served two terms and became deputy speaker of the assembly, where colleagues remember her as someone who formed friendships across party lines and cracked jokes while chairing the parliaments sessions.

No longer a member of parliament, she split with the MHP leadership in 2016 over Erdogan's bid to transform Turkeys constitution. Instead of joining her party in backing the president, Aksener gave voice to a dissident faction. When she and other rebel nationalists called a party congress in an Ankara hotel in an attempt to oust the MHPs leadership, police sealed off the building. Outside, a roiling crowd of men surged against the barricades. Aksener climbed on top of a bus and spoke through a bullhorn, urging the courts to take action. You must immediately correct this mistake, [this] chaos and unlawfulness, she said . In June an Ankara court once again ruled against the MHP dissidents, and Aksener ruled out another bid for the party leadership. "I closed that chapter," she told reporters on July 3.

Now Aksener is considering a bid for her country's leadership under a new banner. But she is far from a perfect political candidate; she counts her deep experience in government as an advantage, at a time when outsiders seem to be sweeping elections across the planet. "Aksener is the Hillary Clinton of Turkey's presidential election," says Turkish political analyst Selim Sazak . "Everyone kinda sorta wants Aksener in power, but she's like a prune juice. It's good for your health, but it's not appetizing."

At the same time, there are precious few candidates in Turkey with a legitimate shot at challenging Erdogan. Dissident leaders within Erdogan's own party have failed to step forward and challenge the president. Others have paid bitterly for their defiance.

Selahattin Demirtas , for example, the popular leader of a pro-Kurdish party is now in prison on terrorism charges after he and at least 10 other lawmakers from his party who were arrested in November 2016. The crackdown decimated Demirtas Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), the parliaments third largest. In her interview with TIME, Aksener broke with her nationalist brethren and criticized the arrests of the pro-Kurdish lawmakers. "Erdogan is trying to threaten Kurdish society, that is why he put them in jail right before the referendum," she said.

Aksener herself has not escaped the governments fury. Pro-government media have assailed her with salacious claims about her personal life. She has received death threats. She regards the smears and threats as an orchestrated campaign to scare her. Since April 2016 theyve been trying to get me to back down, and I havent.

Chastened by the recent crackdown, other opposition figures believe the government will simply find a way to stop Aksener. Asked about her, a senior official in Demirtas Peoples Democratic Party said, Anybody whose name is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, all of these goons and trolls and media people, theyll do smear campaigns to disqualify them, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the party has not yet taken a stance on the presidential election.

Aksener has yet to decide whether she'll put her head above the parapet and take Erdogan on. Since the referendum campaign, she has bided her time, cooking and going for long walks with her husband outside her Istanbul home. The walks are a chance for her to reflect and make assessments, she says. I concentrate better when Im on the move.

One thing she won't do, she says, is run. She has no passport, and if Erdogan's authorities show up to arrest her along with the many thousands of others perceived to have crossed him, she will once again do what she is supposed to do. Be my guest, she says, Im here.

Vilday Ay contributed reporting.

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Turkey's 'Iron Lady' Meral Aksener Is Getting Ready to Challenge Erdogan - TIME