By Merve Sebnem Oruc
*The author is a columnist for the Daily Sabah newspaper
ISTANBUL
Remarks by Fetullah Gulen following the 15 July coup attempt deserve to be particularly scrutinized as he wrote an article for The New York Times on July 25, saying the United States administration should not take a stand in line with Turkey’s demands and not extradite him.
After the failed coup attempt of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO)’s arm in the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), the remarks made by the leader of the organization matter to realize the global and regional dimensions of the issue while the role of the U.S. in the coup attempt was questioned in this process. In addition, Fetullah Gulen’s statements provide diagnostic codes for our analyses that point to what would happen in future.
After the failed coup attempt, which we can interpret as a break-up of least 30-35 years of huge investments, if the U.S. administration were linked to the failed coup attempt, as the great majority of the Turkish public opinion believes, the U.S. would not extradite Fetullah Gulen.
Therefore, Gulen’s article in the New York Times can also be read as a fear of expulsion of staff that could not fulfill the task and mess it up. Thus, it has appeared in some news in the media that the leader and members of the FETO began to find alternative countries to move to while trying to stay in U.S. For example, according to news from Egypt, the FETO members have increased their contacts in Cairo after the coup attempt. On the other hand, this can be seen as a chance of revenge for Egypt, as Turkey has hosted some members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which have fallen into an opponent position in the country as well as having been declared a terrorist organization after the bloody Egyptian coup in 2013.
It can be predicted that the failure of the coup attempt in Turkey caused a big disappointment in Egypt, where the Abdel Fattah el-Sisi administration excitedly welcomed the potential for actualization of the FETO coup attempt. Besides, Egypt also prevented the release of the United Nations Security Council statement condemning the coup attempt and showing support for the democratically elected government in Turkey.
Would Egypt give right to asylum for Gulen at the risk of the rupture of relations with Turkey, as Egypt was sending signals in the direction to restore the relations before the coup attempt in Turkey? This possibility may lead to further increase in tensions between the countries in the region.
FETO’s problem with Islam
The clear approach between FETO and Egypt, where democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood was toppled and declared a terrorist organization by the putschist general el-Sisi, is not surprising as one of the aggressive social media users of the FETO, Tuncay Opcin wrote several times on his social media account: “Our business is not with AKP, but also with political Islam. Keep going until this mind will die out.”
As other FETO members living in Ontario, Canada, Faruk Arslan wrote an article at the FETO’s news portal ‘Corum Haber’ with the title of “The Virtuous Person will take over the duty in 2016” saying that ‘coming of the Eagle Kahtani [Savior] who will fulfill the third duty of the Grand Mahdi will appear’ and writing remarkable good tidings such as ‘born of the Yavuz [Brave] after the dead of Sufyani [rival of Mahdi] in this age.’ In this article, ‘Sufyani’ refers to Erdogan as what they earlier described him as ‘Yezid’, ‘dictator’, ‘despot’ etc. While they describe Fetullah Gulen as ‘Virtuous Person’, ‘Eagle Kahtani’ and ‘Yavuz’, it is also claimed that Fetullah Gulen will take over the duty after he overthrows Erdogan in 2016. Therefore, one must focus carefully on FETO’s role in this equation on a global scale, including the slanders that have been thrown out such as “relations between political Islam and AK Party” following “the government gives support to Daesh” in recent years.
It is very important in this perspective that in the first post-coup attempt interview of Gulen, over a question about the claims that Turkey supported Daesh, he was saying that “Erdogan is putting himself in Moses’ place while describing el-Sisi as Pharaoh and actually Erdogan is having desire to seize Egypt.” Gulen was also saying some remarks that we need to evaluate in line with FETO’s effect on the civil wars and the coups that bring chaos in the region, which began the Syria-Egypt-Turkey triangle.
The ‘support to Daesh’ lie
In fact, only this sentence: “While it is known by the public that ISIS (Daesh), earlier El-Qaeda, and Tahsiyeciler, which is an affiliate in Turkey, was a terrorist organization, they (Turkish government) was clandestinely helping them,” may help us to remember FETO’s fingerprint in the time when Turkey faced claims accusing the country of helping Daesh, following the accusations of Turkey through the Muslim Brotherhood in various ways.
One may remember that Gulen targeted Nur Movement’s Tahsiyeci group, which is against him. The leader of the group has targeted in the TV Series named ‘One Turkey’ aired on the STV, the FETO’s TV channel, which was shut down after the coup attempt. Police operations were later launched against the Tahsiyeci group. Moreover, the Dec. 17-25 police raids against the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH)’s Hatay branch in January 2014 were headlined as “Al-Qaeda operation” in the Zaman newspaper, while Bugun newspaper wrote about the raids as “great beat to Al-Qaeda.”
However, these were not only power struggles independent of each other or smear campaigns conducted through the media. But these were also some of carefully placed parts that want to create “Turkey and Al-Qaeda” links in order to clinch claims in judgment. Also in January 2014, three trucks of the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) were stopped by gendarmerie forces in 2014 by the order of parallel state (FETO’s structure within state institutions) prosecutor, Ozcan Sisman. Radikal newspaper journalist, Fatih Yagmur, reported this development with the headlines: “weapons claims in aid truck,” and first accused IHH then MIT. This was the most important part of the fiction. An arrest warrant has been issued for Yagmur as part of the attempted coup investigation. His report was distorted quickly by social media groups, led by FETO members as “weapons were going to Daesh.” As a result of this, endless slanders as “Turkey helping Daesh” have been unquestioningly released.
“As for the trucks... the soldiers seized them. They were full of weapons... Daesh and al-Nusra have always been supported by this government.” These sentences by Fetullah Gulen shed light to some probable accusations against an overthrown government if the coup attempt had been successful on 15 July, as this was the first output to declare AK Party as a terrorist organization with the Selam-Tevhid intrigue. Chief of general staff, Hulusi Akar, stated in his witness testimony over the 15 July that one of the plotters, brigadier general Hakan Evrim said to him: “Let's put you in touch with our opinion leader Fetullah Gulen.” It has been revealed that Fetullah Gulen has a voice in all activities of the organization directly, and is a decision-maker.
However, Gulen also claimed in the interview that Erdogan “aimed to declare himself as Amir al-Mu'minin (Leader of the Faithful in Islam, “Caliph”) in Syria, Middle East and Islamic World as overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. He could enter Jordan, Egypt and Maghreb countries following Syria. He had such ambitions in the Islamic world. He was trying to reach those ambitions with ISIS. He is still helping to ISIS, giving money, treating them.” This statement reminded us that such claims that we saw in international media, such as ‘Erdogan keeps his mind on Assad’, ‘dreaming on neo-Ottomanism’, have been based from FETO’s media and social media accounts, and also pointed out that the order to get these claims into circulation in Turkish media came from Fetullah Gulen.
Not just smear campaign, a terrible project
It is impossible to think that such calumnies on “Daesh-Turkey Tie”, which sourced thousands of news in the world, remain only as fabricated news. A major part of the sources, sources of the sources, and sources of those asked for their views in the research, which was signed by David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, has been based on FETO’s media offsets. Last sample to the spread of the fictionalized plot into the world, with a rigorous and systematic work, was that former CIA adviser and theoretician on ‘Moderate Islam’, Henri Barkey claimed that “Turkey is arming jihadists” at the meeting organized by the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs the day before he came to Turkey on the day of 15 July coup attempt. These theses of the Barkey and also the other experts’ claims, which were met with FETO’s slanders, were first announced by the FETO linked website, ‘Haberdar.’ On the other hand, another remarkable detail was that the participants had powerfully defended Gulen movement as it has been likened to a masonic organization.
In brief, the fabricated news, which has been spread by FETO linked media for a long time, has been quoted by opponent media related, academic, informative, political channels as having been based on ‘so-called notable local sources’, and also these have been recorded. Moreover, the terror operations over the coup attempt against the FETO linked media organs have been reflected as the silencing of the media, without mentioning the fact that FETO was behind the coup attempt, by the international organizations, including Amnesty International.
Fetullah Gulen was adding in his aforesaid interview: “Not only intelligence services, but also everyone knows this. The highest numbers of recruits to Daesh, I think, are from Turkey... Even now, Daesh is on the streets in Turkey. The government has raids launched on the houses of religious but dissenting people. They take these people and butcher them and kill them for being in opposition to the government. Daesh is being used in Turkey right now as the No.1 instrument.” When you compare the recruitment numbers to Daesh from Turkey and other countries, you may think that Fetullah Gulen’s remarks are incorrect based on the smear campaign, but his statements are pointing to much more dangerous and conscious slanders, as saying “government raided opponents’ residences, killed, hacked, shut them on the grounds of Daesh.” There is no news as well marks saying that has been happened in Turkey. However, FETO leader Gulen pitilessly tells these kind of lies without batting an eyelid, easily. This is pointing to the size of the systematic slanders and how big this project is.
"Beheaded soldier" lie
On the night of July 15, in the advancing hours, over the prediction that the coup attempt will fail, we witnessed that some local and foreign social media accounts described the Turkish people’s terrific reaction against the attempted coup as saying “secular Turkish Army is struggling against Erdogan supporters of being Daesh member.” With continuation of such claims, the respected media outlets headlined the topic as “secular Turkish Army against the Islamist Erdogan” with news and comments. If we read the issue as Fetullah Gulen is presenting himself as ‘Mahdi’ to the bottom of organization while describing as “democracy defender”, “Moderate Muslim”, and “Erdogan dissident cleric” to the world; it can be seen that Erdogan has been portrayed a representative of “Radical Islam” while Gulen has been portrayed as a representative of “Moderate Islam”, and it can be seen clearly that it has been also tried to legalize the coup attempt. Likewise in the first hours of the morning of July 16, “beheaded soldier” lie was a sample for us as part of the smear campaign claiming, “Daesh members on streets are in opposite to secular Turkish Army,” in order to give this impression.
Gulen: “Erdogan extremely hard against Kurds”
It is known that such slanders like “Turkey is supporting Daesh”, “Increased Daesh threat in Turkey”, “Erdogan fed Daesh as he became obsessed with Assad” have been described as PKK’s Syrian affiliate PYD has been legitimated by domestic and foreign media outlets as they showing this organization as freedom fighters against Daesh.
It is also known that PKK breaking the cease-fire in order to haul the civil war in Syria toward Turkey has been described as “Erdogan’s war against Kurds” in international media. Known for his Kurdish hostility, Fetullah Gulen, who earlier criticized the solution process, has joined the global smear campaign against the Turkey-PKK war through his article in the New York Times, claiming that “Erdogan arbitrarily shut down newspapers; sacked thousands of judges, prosecutors, police and state officers.”
Again in the aforesaid interview, attention has been drawn to Fetullah Gulen’s need to divide the army in some way. He said that “[they] did not give up Daesh. Major defenders of Daesh in the world are ours, those who are in power.” Gulen also protected his followers within the army with these words: “They make something look like as they are fighting against the Daesh. Actually they do not. But the military’s some attempts may be sincere. I cannot say anything to this. The military could be dropping some bombs on ISIS, the Russians could be doing the same thing, Americans could also do the same thing.”
There are doubts anywhere that FETO has touched
This statement does not only reveal the purpose of protecting loyal soldiers to Gulen, and smear the government, but also questioning what those loyal army personnel and state organs who were working in Syria to Iraq, fighting against Daesh to PKK, could have done. If an organization, which claimed that Erdogan and AK Party supported Daesh, is in parallel structure within the army and the state, what could it have done in order to show like this? What couldn't it do?
Did FETO confine only one attempt with MIT trucks in order to say “Turkey is supporting Daesh” or did they intentionally act to come in sight the news such as “friendly scene of Daesh and a Turkish soldier in the border line?” Were there effects of FETO’s soldiers behind that TAF tanks did not move when Mosul was occupied by Daesh, despite the demands of Ankara and Erbil? Or, did FETO’s soldiers wink at PKK activities as the trenches in Nusaybin have been dug in front of the second army while the clashes were ongoing in Cizre, Yuksekova, Sur?
Questions mark about the many events; from the downing of the Muhsin Yazicioglu’s helicopter, to Uludere tragedy; from Ergonekon and Balyoz cases to the downing of the Russian jet; 20 years of history of Turkey and the region, would be rewritten in the light of recent information. If the hidden hand that wants to augment the claims that “Erdogan is supporting Daesh” and “Erdogan started war against to Kurds,” harbor 149 generals in the TAF, which have 356 generals, what can do or what did? Furthermore, it is also subject of direct relations of this organization with the PKK and Daesh, which infiltrated i the army, judiciary, and police and even into the bureaucratic organs like the ministry of agriculture and rural affairs. An organization, which infiltrated into the state in this scale, may have infiltrated into other terrorist organizations.
We saw how FETO, with in a guise of ‘Hizmet’ could be so brutal on the night of 15 July, as it took steps in Turkey in order to wreck traditional Islam as diving into two sides as ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’; backing putschists and dictators in Egypt and in Syria; accepting opponents as a terrorist such as ”Muslim Brotherhoods” and placing them in same photo with Daesh. That and similar questions reveal that each steps of the FETO, whose top obsession is Turkey’s foreign policy, through the army, intelligence, and diplomacy should be examined rigorously. At the same time, if FETO and the probability of its leaders fleeing to Egypt would become true, it harbors the danger of a proxy war, which run by the superpowers through the terror organizations in the region, may turn to actual war between armies and countries.
*Translated by Ilker Girit from Istanbul.
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