Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used an local election rally in the western city of Aydin on Monday to focus on the 1960 army coup against Democratic Party leader Adnan Menderes who was hanged by a military junta in 1961.
Erdogan said: "Some media and anti-democratic people accused Menderes before the 1960 Turkish coup and now the December 17 anti-graft operations were aimed at weakening the government, indirectly threatening the democratization process and the country’s stability.
"The 1960s military coup newspaper headlines and today Gulen-affiliated media’s newspaper headlines are the same; it is a clear trap against the government," Erdogan added.
The prime minister said his government would take all necessary steps to rid Turkey of the ‘parallel state’ allegedly led by U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen.
"We will fight parallel state led by the man in Pennsylvania [Gulen] as we fought the other organizations against the elected democratic government," said Erdogan.
He also warned the electorate against "tricks" during upcoming March 30 municipal elections, which he claimed are likely to be played by Gulen movement members.
He also dismissed main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s claim that his CHP party had solved the headscarf issue. Thousands of headscarf-wearing students had to leave their universities, and many went abroad to complete their studies following a military intervention into politics in Turkey in February 1997.
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