DUSHANBE, July 21, 2016, Asia-Plus – Iranian Fars News Agency ( FNA ) reported yesterday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly received from Russia a warning about an imminent military coup hours before it was initiated.

The news agency referred to several Arab media outlets quoting diplomats from Ankara who said that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization “received intel from its Russian counterpart that warned of an impending coup.”

The warning was basing on data that Russian military in the region received intercepting “highly sensitive army exchanges and encoded radio messages showing that the Turkish army was readying to stage a coup,” it went on.

In particular, they reportedly discussed plans to dispatch several army helicopters to the hotel (in Marmaris) where Erdogan stayed to arrest or kill him, it said.

The diplomats were not sure of the Russian station that had intercepted the exchanges, but said the Russian army intelligence unit deployed in Khmeimim in Syria''s northern province of Lattakia is reportedly equipped with state-of-the-art electronic and eavesdropping systems to gather highly sensitive information, FNA said.