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Until the April vote, Turkish presidents were obliged to cut ties with their parties to show their neutrality.

But the constitutional changes scrapped that rule, and on Sunday, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned the reins to Erdogan in a extraordinary Congress in Ankara.

"I am grateful to you for considering me worthy of becoming the leader of the Justice and Development Party once again," he said.

Erdogan could potentially remain president until 2029 under the country's new political structure.

The President appeared to have come to the Congress with the country's next elections in mind, reminding his supporters that "2019 is upon us."

"We will have local elections in March 2019, and general elections and presidential elections in November 2019. We shall not stop. We shall work hard and maintain our humbleness," he said Sunday. Some 80,000 supporters showed up to the Congress, according to media reports.

Erodgan co-founded the AKP in 2001, and the political powerhouse has ruled the country since its 2002 election win. Resuming leadership of the party would put Erdogan in control of both the executive branch of government and the largest party in Parliament.

It will also mean he can appoint his loyalists to more key posts.

The referendum, brought forward by the AKP, was widely condemned by European leaders and rights groups, who saw it as a blatant power grab by a leader showing increasing dictatorial tendencies.

Following an attempted military coup last year, Erodgan has led an ongoing purge that has gutted public institutions and crushed his political opponents. More than 100,000 people have been either jailed, arrested or suspended from their jobs.

He has been able to use heavier-handed tactics under the country's state of emergency, which was declared following the coup attempt and extended several times. On Sunday, Erdogan said that he had no plans to end it.

"We will end it when peace and safety and security is restored. Why should we end it? Schools are open. Factories are running. Everything is going on as normal," he said.

The tentacles of Erdogan's crackdown have also reached the country's universities and media organizations, once bastions of free thought and expression in Turkey. Academics and journalists considered critics of the government have been imprisoned for months without trial.

Erdogan also appears to have taken this brutality to the United States, where men who appeared to be his bodyguards were captured on a video by Voice of America on Tuesday outside the Turkish ambassador's home pushing and repeatedly kicking anti-Erdogan protestors.

Two law enforcement officials confirmed to CNN that Turkish security officials were involved in the bloody brawl.

It is not the first time members of Erdogan's entourage have been filmed fighting in public.

A little more than a year ago in the same city, journalists accused members of Erdogan's security detail of manhandling them and cursing them at a speech the Turkish president gave at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

CNN's Joseph Netto, Elise Labott, Zachary Cohen, Paul P. Murphy and Peter Morris contributed to this report.

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Erdogan returns as chief of Turkey's ruling party - CNN.com

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday took back control of the ruling party he founded, a step that gives the nations most powerful man additional authority to appoint loyalists to parliament lists and party posts across the nation.

Just a month after a vote approved transferring Turkeys center of political power to the presidency from parliament, the AK Partys leadership and tens of thousands of party faithful convened to anoint Erdogan at an extraordinary congress in Ankara. The referendums result allowed the president, until then constitutionally an impartial head of state, to be a member or leader of a political party.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan on May 20.

Photographer: Metin Pala/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Erdogan, 63, who has already defanged Turkeys once-influential military, neutralized the opposition and subordinated the press, will now wipe out any vestiges of dissent within the ruling party. A new set of party regulations includes stiffer penalties for breaking discipline, and expulsion for anyone who acts in a way perceived as serving the purposes of another party, Hurriyet newspaper reported.

The congress took place under extraordinary security measures, amid a state of emergency thats been in place since the aftermath of a July 15 coup attempt. Some 60,000 people were brought into Ankara by bus from outside the city, Hurriyet reported. By 9:30 a.m., security forces could be seen using pepper spray against masses of supporters who had congregated outside the arena and were fighting to get closer.

Erdogan founded the AK Party in 2001 as a conservative, free market-oriented, Islam-inspired political movement that was an alternative to the long-time domination of rigid secularists -- the successors of modern Turkeys founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The AK Party swept to power in an election the next year, winning almost two-thirds of the seats in parliament with just 34 percent of the vote.

Since then, the party has lost its commanding majority in the legislature just once, in June 2015: the elections were repeated five months later amid an upsurge in violence and an inability of opposition parties to form a coalition government. Leaders of the main pro-Kurdish party, whose boost in support was instrumental in stripping the AK Party of its ability to rule alone after that election, were later jailed on terrorism charges.

In a speech to business group Tusiad earlier this week, Erdogan said that Turkey needed to keep its rate of economic growth at 6 percent or higher, which is more than double the average forecast of economists in Bloomberg surveys for this year. He also said that Turkey would keep the state of emergency in place as long as needed.

In a nearly two-hour speech at the congress, Erdogan highlighted 15 years of economic achievements and attributed any democratic shortcomings to threats from terrorist organizations. He again rejected calls for the removal of the state of emergency, known as Ohal in Turkish, which allows him to rule by decree.

Its not going to be lifted, he said. Are your factories not working? Are the schools closed? Why should the Ohal be lifted?

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Some 150,000 people have been swept up in purges since the coup attempt, including academics, journalists and opposition politicians whove been jailed for months without trial. Last week, arrest warrants were issued for four people, including the owner, at one of the nations last remaining opposition newspapers, Sozcu, which has a vehemently secularist-nationalist bent. They were accused of working with the Islamic group Erdogan says was behind the failed coup, the movement of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Changes made to the partys central board, the MKYK, included adding pro-government businessman Ethem Sancak, whose group of companies includes defense interests and media outlets, according to Aksam newspaper. Ministers Veysi Kaynak and Mehmet Muezzinoglu were dropped, along with Saban Disli, a party coordinator for economic affairs, and Yasin Aktay, the party spokesman.

Changes to the cabinet could be made within a couple of days, Haberturk TV cited AK Party Deputy Bulent Turan as saying. The replacement of 19 of 50 MKYK members signals that 20 to 30 percent of the cabinet could also be replaced, said Mustafa Elitas, another deputy.

Erdogan will present his return to the party as the start of a new era for Turkey, but the countrys economic and political outlook has deteriorated, according to Wolfango Piccoli, co-founder of Teneo Intelligence in London. The change may usher in a cabinet reshuffle in which appointees are named based on loyalties rather than talent, he said.

Erdogan has achieved a long-held dream of establishing a presidential system where the president faces little, if any, checks and balances on his power, Piccoli wrote in a report on Turkey. The AKP has gradually become Erdogans personal vehicle while losing its way and vision.

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Erdogan's Grip on Turkey Tightens as He Retakes Ruling Party

New York Times

Erdogan Says He Will Extend His Sweeping Rule Over Turkey New York Times ISTANBUL In a signal that Turkey faces indefinite rule by decree, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday that a state of emergency, introduced as a temporary measure after last year's failed coup, would continue until the country ... Turkey Courts Disaster After Erdogan's Bodyguards Beat US Citizens On American SoilThe Federalist Turkey's ruling party elects President Erdogan as leaderWashington Post Turkey's ruling party re-elects Recep ErdoganAlbany Times Union CNN -Financial Times -BBC -CNN all 323 news articles »

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Erdogan Says He Will Extend His Sweeping Rule Over Turkey - New York Times

Frame grab from footage provided by AFP shows anti-Erdogan protesters in Istanbul on May 21, 2017.

Police in Istanbul have fired tear gas atprotesters angry with the results of a recent referendum which givesPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers.

Participants at the Sunday rally denounced the results of the April 16 referendum thatwill replace the Turkish republic's parliamentary formof government with a strong presidency.

The powers include the head of states ability to hire and fire at will, prompting Amnesty International on Monday toaccuseAnkara of implementing "arbitrary dismissals".

In a report, the UK-based rights body criticized the expulsions, which it said were "carried out arbitrarily on the basis of vague and generalized grounds of connection to terrorist organisations."

It was referring towhat criticsdenounce asan overused tactic by the governmento accuse suspects of links to Kurdish separatists and US-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, whom Ankara says was behind a coup last July.

Erdoganhas been riding a wave of patriotism after quashing thecoup, holding around 47,000 people in detention and summarily dismissingmore than 100,000 public sector employees.

According to Amnesty, of those dismissed more than 33,000 are teachers and other employees of the Education Ministry while over 24,000 are police officers and others from the Interior Ministry.

Over 8,000 are members of the armed forces, more than 5,000 are academics and include those working in the higher education sector as well as over 4,000 judges, prosecutors and justice ministry officials, the group said.

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On Sunday, Erdogan was elected the head of the countrys ruling Justice and Development Party, a position he had stepped down from three years ago.He was the only candidate of the internal vote.

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Police raid anti-Erdogan rally in Istanbul - Press TV

Videos of Tuesdays clash outside the Turkish ambassadors residence in Washington show a violent and chaotic scene: guards for the visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan charging, beating and stomping people peacefully protesting that countrys policies.

Baton-waving D.C. police officers forcefully break up the melee and separate the two sides, then turn to tend to bloodied protesters as the guards, some of them armed, retreat to the safety of their diplomatic compound.

The fracas, captured on video and widely spread in traditional and social media, sparked outrage and stern words from many U.S. politicians and calls for the ambassadors expulsion.

D.C. police vowed to continue their investigation of the confrontation. But several law enforcement experts said its likely little will come of it.

Issues of diplomatic immunity would make any prosecution difficult, if not impossible, they said. And the leveling of charges might embolden other countries to ignore similar immunity agreements, putting U.S. diplomats abroad at risk. Most experts said police did the right thing, focusing on stopping the attacks and limiting the injuries.

The outcome may not satisfy everybody, but they dont understand the intricacies of dealing with people with diplomatic immunity, said Charles H. Ramsey, who has headed both the District and Philadelphia police departments. Nobody is going to leave this happy, and they may not agree with the decision, but it is what it is.

[Erdogans guards clash with protesters in D.C.]

The State Department on Wednesday summoned Turkeys ambassador for a meeting, the equivalent of a diplomatic scolding.

D.C. police arrested two men during the incident, neither affiliated with the Turkish Embassy. A State Department official confirmed two members of Erdogans security detail also were detained but were then released, conforming to the customs of international law that affords heads of state and members of their entourage with inviolability from arrest and detention.

Ramsey and some other authorities said police handled the disturbance smartly by separating the antagonists and leaving it to others to sort out culpability and criminality. He said even if the officers didnt immediately grasp that the guards were potentially immune from arrest, they would have known that a fight outside an ambassadors residence was more complex than a simple dispute.

The officers in D.C. are well trained, Ramsey said. They are very familiar with these unique kind of circumstances. This is not your typical city.

But Eugene ODonnell, a former police officer and prosecutor in New York City, said the videos show that D.C. police had not adequately prepared for a potential clash and that the officers appeared neutered and paralyzed as they tried to restore order.

He questioned granting the Turkish security guards any leniency.

It cant be right that all you have to have is a suit and a lanyard around your neck and you can tear into peaceful protesters, said ODonnell, who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and has trained foreign police forces. Diplomatic immunity cant be a license to attack people at will. The cops see people beating others into submission, and I think theyre convinced it was above their pay grade to act.

D.C. police on Friday defended their handling of the incident, saying in a statement that officers displayed sound decision-making and professionalism. On Wednesday, Police Chief Peter Newsham said that the situation was very dicey for officers because the Turkish guards carried guns, and Newsham commended the officers for stopping the melee without more significant injury.

The nations capital frequently attracts protesters, and this past year has seen more than usual, making known their views about President Trump, human rights, wars, dictators, police tactics, entanglements in far-off lands and issues closer to home. They can be tiny groups or hundreds of thousands of people taking their message to the leader of the free world. Some peaceful, some not, all are a backdrop to the Districts routine rhythm.

D.C. police and Newsham have been judged by the handling of public dissent from the mass arrests at Pershing Park in 2002 that violated civil liberties and cost the District millions in civil settlements to Januarys arrests of more than 200 during a violent disturbance during Trumps inauguration.

Each demonstration is fraught with its own political agendas, and police are expected to assume a neutral role to allow free speech while preventing violence.

District officials said they are reviewing video from Tuesday to identify attackers and possibly obtain arrest warrants. Newsham said Wednesday that he had talked with State Department and Secret Service officials and is very encouraged about their cooperation. He said issues over diplomatic immunity wont prevent us from doing what we have to do.

In Congress, lawmakers called for barring the guards from the United States and even for kicking the Turkish ambassador out of the country. But criminal justice experts say that is unlikely.

I understand everybody wants justice and fairness, said Roscoe C. Howard Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District from 2001 to 2004. It just doesnt work all the time.

Howard said police exhibited proper restraint. You start putting those guys in handcuffs, he said, referring to the Turkish guards, it ends up going from a local melee to an international incident.

[After Erdogan meets Trump, Turkey calls for ouster of American envoy to anti-ISIS coalition]

Howard said any decision on whether to take action must consider the greater context of international relations, such as Turkeys cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State and its role in accepting people fleeing the war in Syria.

Its not what happens here, Howard said. Its what happens in Turkey. ... We tell the guards they are no longer welcome in our country, and Turkey is going to randomly pick folks from the U.S. Embassy and say they have to get out. He said he knows its a raw deal for the guy with his head bashed in or teeth missing. Hes going to feel he wasnt given a fair shake.

Turkeys semiofficial news agency cast the melee as a failure of D.C. police, saying they did not stop the anti-Erdogan protest. The government later alleged that its guards had responded in self-defense to terrorists it said had joined the protesters.

Demonstrators denied the presence of militants and alleged that police stood by as Turkish thugs attacked. One video shows a man lean into a car where Erdogan was sitting, then signal to another man who then heads toward the protesters. Things quickly become chaotic, and other videos show more dark-suited men, some carrying furled red flags, kicking and punching protesters as police try to intercede. At one point, Erdogan emerges from the car and watches the scene.

[Was Erdogan personally involved in his bodyguards attacks on protesters in D.C.?]

W. Ralph Basham, who directed the Secret Service from 2003 to 2006, said the fact that D.C. police separated the two sides with minimal arrests appeared more a tactical decision than one born out of consideration of geopolitical ramifications.

The security detail attack on the demonstrators was pretty speedy and violent, and the police were trying to sort it all out, Basham said. They tried to push people to their neutral corners, but in this case there were no neutral corners. It was total chaos.

Carol Morello, Magda Jean-Louis and Perry Stein contributed to this article.

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Plenty of tough talk for Erdogan guards, but action is unlikely, experts say - Washington Post