CRI听力:Turkish government "in-control" after attempted coup: Erdogan

The coup began with warplanes and helicopters roaring over Ankara and troops moving in to seal off the bridges over the Bosphorus Strait that links Europe and Asia in Istanbul.

Erdogan, who had been holidaying on the coast when the coup was launched, flew into Istanbul before dawn on Saturday and was shown on TV appearing among a crowd of supporters outside the airport; one location coup plotters had failed to secure.

Erdogan called the uprising an "act of treason", and said those responsible would pay a heavy price.

"As one of our soldiers, is not possible to accept if you point your guns at the people, at your mother, your father and your brothers and sisters. Those guns were given to you by the people of this country. If you use these guns against the people who gave them to you, you will pay a heavy price. You need to turn back from this mistake."

He also says those conducting the coup were in fact a minority in the Turkish army.

"This is a minority within Turkish army. There is a ruling party in Turkey that was elected by people's votes. There is also a president elected by people's votes and we are on duty. God's willing we will continue to fulfil our duty until the end. And we will never leave our country to these intruders."

He says arrests of officers are under way, and it would go higher up the ranks, culminating in the cleansing of the military.

Gunfire and explosions had rocked both the main city Istanbul and capital Ankara in a chaotic night after soldiers took up positions in both cities and ordered state television to read out a statement declaring they had taken power.

But by early Saturday, Reuters reports that its journalists saw around 30 pro-coup soldiers surrender their weapons after being surrounded by armed police in Istanbul's central Taksim square.

They were taken away in police vans as a fighter jet repeatedly screeched overhead at low altitude, causing a boom that shook surrounding buildings and shattered windows.

One Istanbul resident decried the violence surrounding the coup.

"This is cruelty. Shame on people who did this to our beautiful country. I don't have anything else to　tell them. They should be afraid of the God and ashamed of God's followers. Who has the right to do this to our beautiful country? Shame on them."

A successful overthrow of Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, would have marked one of the biggest shifts in the Middle East in years, transforming one of the most important U.S. allies while war rages on within its borders.

Analysts say even a failed coup attempt could still destabilise a pivotal country in the extremely restive region.

Before returning to Istanbul, Erdogan appeared in a video call to the studio of the Turkish sister channel of cnn, where an announcer held up a mobile phone to the camera to show him.

Erdogan and other officials are blaming the attempted coup on followers of Fethullah Gulen, an influential cleric in self-imposed exile in the United States who once supported Erdogan but became a nemesis.

The pro-Gulen Alliance for Shared Values said it condemned any military intervention in domestic politics

For CRI, I'm Spencer Musick.