ANKARA: Former Turkish air force chief Akin Ozturk has confessed to prosecutors his role in plotting the coup that attempted to topple the government over the weekend, state-run Anadolu Agency said on Monday.

Two private broadcasters, however, said that Akin Ozturk has not confessed to playing a role in a failed military coup, contradicting a state media report.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said Ozturk had confessed to helping to plot the coup. However, Haberturk and NTV cited what they said was his testimony to prosecutors, reporting that he denied playing a role.

“I am not someone who has planned or directed the coup attempt that was carried out on July 15 and I don't know who did,” NTV cited him as saying in his testimony.

More than 200 people were killed after a faction in the military launched the coup attempt on Friday night, sealing off a bridge across the Bosphorus, trying to capture Istanbul's main airport and sending tanks to parliament in Ankara.

Turks woke up early Saturday to television pictures showing dozens of soldiers surrendering after the failed coup, some with their hands above their head, others forced to the ground in the streets.

“The situation is completely under control,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said outside his Ankara offices, flanked by Turkey's top general who had himself been taken hostage by the plotters.

Describing the attempted coup as a “black stain” on Turkey's democracy, Yildirim said 161 people had been killed in the night of violence and 1,440 wounded.

Thousands took to the streets of Turkey Saturday in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after authorities crushed a military coup that claimed at least 265 lives.

The authorities blamed Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric who is Erdogan's arch enemy, for the plot and lost no time in rounding up 2,839 soldiers over alleged involvement, amid global alarm over the extent of the retribution.

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