President Obama convened a rare Saturday meeting in the Situation Room with members of his national security and foreign policy teams to discuss the attempted coup in Turkey.
Obama was briefed on the situation Friday evening and issued a statement of support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as members of the Turkish military tried unsuccessfully to take control of the government into the early hours of Saturday morning.
Erdogan returned to Istanbul from vacation Saturday and reasserted his leadership of the country once the uprising had been quelled by forces loyal to his government.
As a NATO ally, Turkey's role in the Middle East is of deep interest to the United States, which has sought Turkish assistance fighting the Islamic State and aiding Syrian rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The attempted coup could signal destabilization in Turkey, which elected Erdogan democratically in 2014.