Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told Haberturk television that
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has captured 80 citizens accused of following the US-based Islamic holy man Fethullah Gülen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...in operations in 18 countries.
The figure of 80 disclosed by Bozdag on Thursday runs much higher than previously assumed and indicates that the MIT has ordered people taken in the past without publishing the information. He did not divulge the operational details or say which countries.
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey.... His government has jugged
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
about 38,000 people accused of links to Gulen and fired 110,000 public servants since the coup attempt, which resulted in more than 250 deaths.
Erdogan's government has also vowed to wipe out Gulen's influence abroad, where it has built up a network of schools. Authorities in Ankara have pressured counterparts to close Gulenist schools and extradite staff members with
March's deportations from Kosovo, which drew sharp criticism from human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
groups, were carried out so quietly that even brass hats ‐ including Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj ‐ did not know about them until after the fact. Haradinaj fired the country's interior minister and intelligence chief for their deception but, for the extradited men, five teachers and a doctor who worked in schools and a clinic supported by Gulen's movement, the damage had already been done.
No illegal abductions
Ibrahim Kalin, President Erdogan's press secretary, denies that the government has ordered illegal abductions. He insists, for example, that authorities had worked out an arrangement with their counterparts in Kosovo to extradite the six men secretly and without process.
"We have never engaged in any illegal act in our struggle against (Gulen's movement)," Kalin said. "The event in Kosovo took place ... within the framework of an agreement on the return of criminals."
Without disclosing details, Bozdag trumpeted the events in Kosovo as an example of the MIT's success. He also pledged that "intelligence service operations similar to that in Kosovo will continue." Turkey remains under a state of emergency, which Bozdag expects officials to extend.