Turkey bars all foreign assignment for academics
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ANKARA - The state-run Anadolu news agency reports that Turkey has halted all foreign assignments for academics until further notice.
The Board of Higher Education issued the directive on Wednesday. It states that there will be no new assignments until further notice and that academics currently abroad on assignment will be recalled unless they are obligated to remain there.
A day earlier, the board demanded the resignations of 1,577 university deans, suggesting they may have had ties to the plotters behind Turkey's failed military coup last week, which Turkey's government has blamed on a US-based cleric. The Ministry of Education also fired 15,200 teachers on Tuesday for the same reason.
The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, has denied all knowledge of the coup -- and has suggested that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government could have staged the coup as a way of consolidating power and eliminating government opponents.
