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The Grand Turk

Erdogan's Enemy No. 1 Is Dead, But Behind His Death Lurks the Ghost of an Idea

2024-10-22

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kamran Gasanov

[REGNUM] Prominent Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen has died in the United States at the age of 83. Can Erdogan breathe a sigh of relief?

Purely symbolically, one can say that the main enemy of the Turkish president is gone. At the same time, since 2016, the influence of the Gulenists in Turkey has been significantly undermined.

Gulen and Erdogan started out as ideological allies.

Both supported Islam, criticized Ataturk's secularism, aimed to introduce an Islamic model of society, and both were victims of the secular model and its iron fist in the form of the military.

Gülen followed the religious path from childhood, consciously. At the age of 10, he became a professional reader of the Koran, then a teacher of the Koran. The country's spiritual administration sent him on the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca. - Ed.) as an official.

In the 1970s, Gülen created his own movement, Hizmet, which translates from Turkish as “service.” He preached service to society and the state, called for interreligious dialogue, and exalted the role of education (“school before mosque”). These ideas became the harbinger of the creation of hundreds of schools and lyceums in Turkey, the CIS, and other countries.

Politically, Gülen advocated a more modern Islam, rejected extremes and radicalism. He believed that Islam was not in conflict with democracy, and supported Turkey's European integration. His teachings welcomed dialogue between Islamic movements.

By 1980, Gülen had become one of the most influential Muslim preachers in Turkey.

If he tried to establish an Islamic model through the creation of horizontal connections, education and cultivation of the future elite (teachers, judges, politicians, etc.) in his schools, Erdogan waged an active political struggle. First under the leadership of the founder of political Islam in Turkey, Necmetdin Erbakan, thanks to whom he became mayor of Istanbul in 1994. Then, after another military coup and the ban on the Welfare Party, he founded his own Justice and Development Party (AKP).

With it, Erdogan won the parliamentary elections in 2002 and began to gradually transform the secular republic into an Islamic one. This is where he needed strong allies from the Hizmet organization.

Gulen, who had been in the United States for medical treatment since 1999, supported the AKP. Gulenists saw Erdogan as a force capable of implementing their views.

During Erdogan's premiership, Hizmet strengthened its position. Lyceums and schools were established both inside and outside the country. By spreading the Turkish language, Islam and the positive image of the Ottoman Empire, they strengthened Turkey's soft power and, accordingly, benefited the AKP's foreign policy.

The second motivation for the alliance was the fight against the remnants of the Ataturk era - secular bureaucrats and generals. The former irritated Erdogan by limiting Islam in the country, the latter - by constant military coups, as a result of which Erbakan and Erdogan himself suffered.

By not interfering with and even helping Gulenists take up positions in the military, judicial and educational systems, the Turkish prime minister tried to weaken the secular elite. Erdogan did not hide his support for Gulen, calling him nothing less than "hodja" (mentor, teacher).

The Gülenists paid handsomely for such sympathy. They voted for the AKP in elections. The Gülen-controlled rating media (Zaman, Cihan, Samanyolu) extolled Erdogan and denounced the opposition. In 2008, as part of the Ergenekon affair, Erdogan carried out a purge of the Armed Forces and security agencies. The Gülenists welcomed these measures.

As Erdogan began to triumph over his secular opponents, competition emerged between yesterday's allies.

Erdogan headed the government, his party controlled the parliament, but Gulen influenced the youth, society, had a number of major media outlets at his disposal, including the Zaman newspaper, controlled financial flows through the same schools and the large bank Bank Asya. There was an official state, but in parallel to it there was also a Gulen state with people in all spheres of society - from mosque parishioners to diplomats.

As the Eastern proverb says: "You can't cook two sheep's heads in one pot." The prime minister began to fear the excessive influence of the Gulenists and decided to rein them in.

The beginnings of the conflict appeared back in 2010.

Then Erdogan sent the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, eight Turkish sailors were killed when the ship was stormed by an Israeli coast guard unit. Gulen called the operation an adventure that led to a rupture in strategic relations with Israel.

Three years later, the prime minister encroached on the “sacred.” He proposed closing the private schools of the “djemaat” (as members of the “Hizmet” movement were called, in other words, the “Muslim community.” — Ed.). The Turkish newspaper Taraf published an article under the headline “A plan to finish off Gulen.” It cites an excerpt from a 2004 document of the Turkish National Security Council, which outlines the goal of cleansing state structures of the “djemaat.”

Gulen did not remain in debt.

In December 2013, thanks in large part to the media under his control, a corruption scandal was provoked. The Gulenists had a dossier on almost every official in Turkey.

As part of Operation Big Bribe, the Financial Crime Department conducted searches in the homes of the sons of Foreign Minister Muammer Güler, Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan and Urban Development Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar. The named ministers, as well as the Minister for European Integration Egemen Bagış, were accused of corruption. Moreover, $4.5 million in cash was found during the search at the head of the largest bank, Halk Bankası, Suleyman Aslan.

Erdogan had to change the government, which was a huge blow to his reputation. Critics thought that Erdogan's more than 10-year premiership was coming to an end. Six months before that, the biggest protests since his rise to power had died down in Gezi Park, where Gulen also criticized the actions of the prime minister and the police.

But it was the events of 2014 that really got Erdogan mad and showed him that Gulen was an enemy. That was where he got to the quick.

Not just ministers, but also the prime minister's son, Necmeddin Bilal, began to be accused of corruption. Turkish newspapers published photos of Bilal's meeting with a certain Saudi businessman, Yasin al-Qadi. Allegedly, under the cover of the prime minister's security, they negotiated the sale of a plot of land in a prestigious area of Istanbul, the price of which could reach a billion dollars.

An even more scandalous piece of material has leaked online via Gülen-controlled media: an audio recording of a conversation between the Turkish prime minister and his son, in which they discuss what to do with $30 million. A voice resembling Bilal asks whether Erdogan wants to keep some of it for himself, to which the other person replies: “Better not over the phone.”

Erdogan accused police and prosecutors of a plot orchestrated by " dark forces from abroad."

Turkey began to close down schools sponsored by Gulenists. Already in December 2014, an Istanbul court issued an arrest warrant for their leader. The arrest documents were forwarded to Interpol, but it did not reciprocate.

The conflict, which had gained momentum, reached its peak in 2016.

Two months before the July coup attempt, Erdogan shut down two major Gülen media outlets, the Cihan news agency and the Zaman newspaper. Then came July 15, the day the attempt to overthrow Erdogan arrived.

He placed all responsibility for this on Fethullah Gulen and his people. For his part, the preacher denied his guilt and said that Erdogan himself had faked the coup in order to deal with his opponents.

Be that as it may, the facts indicate the following.

During the uprising, 250 people were killed and more than 2,000 were wounded in a confrontation between supporters of the Turkish president and the putschists. As part of the “purge,” Erdogan’s government arrested more than 200,000 people, convicted 50,000 and fired about 140,000 civil servants.

The Hizmet movement was declared a terrorist organization and has since been known in Turkey as FETÖ. The prosecutor's office has requested two life sentences and 1,900 years in prison for Gülen.

In 2017, the preacher was stripped of his Turkish citizenship. Until his death, Erdogan had been trying to get the US to extradite Gulen, but the Americans refused. Since the coup, the Turkish president has been accusing Gulenists of all mortal sins, and their traces are found in almost every crime.

For example, in 2016, Erdogan admitted that Gulenists were connected to the pilots who shot down a Russian bomber in Syria. They were also accused of organizing an assassination attempt on the Russian ambassador to Ankara, Andrei Karlov.

Gulen's death may make Erdogan both sad and happy at the same time.

Who knows how the political fate of the Turkish president would have turned out if not for the founder of Hizmet?

Erdogan owes his success partly to the Gulenists, and the latter have much to thank the former prime minister for. However, the events of 2013-2014 and 2016 made Gulen an eternal enemy of the 70-year-old Turkish president. So even if he remembers the bright periods of their friendship, hatred probably outweighs nostalgia. One powerful enemy less.

However, it is too early for Erdogan to relax.

Gülen's power was not only in his name, but also in his movement. It is not difficult to kill a person, but it is much more difficult to kill an idea. Gülen's ideas are followed secretly and openly by millions of people in Turkey and beyond.

And besides, even if the Gülenists are weakened, it cannot be ruled out that they could form an alliance with those who now pose a great danger to the extension of the president’s power: the Republican People’s Party and the Kurds.

And if you add foreign funding to this – the Democrats in the US, for example, are not giving up their attempts to overthrow Erdogan,

…the Democrats, really? I had no idea…

who has declared war on Zionism – then the result could be quite unpredictable.

It is not for nothing that the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry and former intelligence director Hakan Fidan said that “ the leader of this dark organization is dead,” but his death “ will not lead to complacency,” since FETÖ is an organization that “ recruits youth.”

Link

The Grand Turk

Turkish 1937

2024-09-09

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

1937 is a reference to the Stalinist purge of the Soviet military in 1937.

Text by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] Russia completely failed to notice Erdogan's victory over the previous Turkish army. And over the past two decades, not only have hundreds of generals and senior officers been imprisoned and fired (moreover, mass arrests and purges of the military in Turkey did not begin after the failed coup of 2016, but much earlier, see the Ergenekon case, etc.), but the entire system has been harshly reformatted.

The structure of the headquarters has been completely changed. Erdogan has purged the army officers as much as possible from the Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, the local State Security and Intelligence Service.

All the higher military schools with very long traditions, such as the Military Academy (which existed since 1834) and the Naval Academy (which dates back to 1773), have been disbanded. In their place, the National Military University has been created, under the leadership of a civilian - historian Erkan Afyoncu, who is very far from the generals. By the way, this Erdogan's chief military educator wrote his dissertation on the history of Crimea.

The military police and border guards have been transferred from the army to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. All military-industrial complex enterprises, previously directly controlled by the Turkish army, have been transferred under the control of the government. Even all military hospitals in the country and the Military Medical Academy have been subordinated to the Ministry of Health. At the same time, about four thousand military doctors and medical staff have been dismissed... Although what is there to count the dismissals of doctors, when in 2016 alone, 586 colonels were dismissed in Turkey - this is 10% of all colonels in the Turkish armed forces.

In a word, Erdogan's pogrom of the old Turkish army, created by the Westernized heirs of Ataturk, is underestimated here.

However, any purges are not only dismissed and/or imprisoned, but also open social elevators. That is, Erdogan's colonels and generals are replacing the old ones. The process there is complex, with a lot of intrigue, it brings both pluses and minuses for modern Turkey - in a word, it is very curious what will come out of it in the end.

He purged the competent and promoted those with the right politics. It should definitely impact military effectiveness.

P.S. For illustration - General Akin Ozturk, until July 2016, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish Air Force. In the photo on the right before the arrest (by the way, almost 6,000 hours of flight time on combat aircraft), and on the left - already under arrest, when Erdogan's investigators quickly beat a confession out of him that he was... a member of a Jewish Masonic lodge.

A Jewish Mason? I thought President Erdogan was busily purging Gulenists.

This is 1937 in Turkish.

Link

The Grand Turk

Turkey arrests 15 for attack on US personnel in Izmir

2024-09-03

See video of the attack here.

[Rudaw] Fifteen members of a Ottoman Turkish ultranationalist group were arrested on Monday and charged with attacking two US military personnel while at port in the western coastal city of Izmir.

"Fifteen suspects involved in the incident have been detained and taken into custody upon the orders of the on-duty public prosecutor," read a statement from Izmir governorate.

Around 4 pm on Monday, the statement added, a group from the ultranationalist Ottoman Turkish Youth Union (TGB)

…in Turkish Turkiye Genclik Birligi, translated as Turkish Youth Union or Youth Union of Turkey, they’re a fraternity of revolutionary socialist clubs at about 49 Turkish universities — the youth wing of the Kemalist socialist Patriot Party, which is too small to actually win elections. They’re for Ataturk and against America, Israel, NATO, the EU, and Recep Tayip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party. Also McDonald’s. Their thing is mobbing a few American soldiers/sailors on leave, putting bags on their heads, and announcing the action in support of the Palestinians and in memory of American troops doing the same to Turkish soldiers in Iraq during Gulf War II in 2003….

attacked US service members in civilian clothes in Izmir.

"A judicial investigation has been initiated regarding the matter," the statement said.

Five other US military personnel were nearby, but not did not get involved in the incident, according to the statement.

The US Embassy in ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
<del>The Sick Man of Europe</del> Turkey

<del>The Sick Man of Europe</del> Turkey

...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
confirmed the attack on the US service members in a post on X.

The embassy added that the US personnel "were safe" and thanked "Ottoman Turkish authorities for their rapid response and ongoing investigation."

The two service members were aboard the USS Wasp, a multipurpose assault ship anchored in Izmir since Sunday. The crowded area where the attack took place is popular among tourists and locals.

TGB grabbed credit for the attack in a post on X and warned US military members from stepping foot on Ottoman Turkish soil.

"American soldiers, who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Paleostinians on their hands, cannot defile our country," the group said in a post on X that showed footage of the attack.

In the video, a group of people can be seen holding one of the US military members and forcing a plastic bag over their head, as the US soldier can be heard pleading for help. Some of the attackers also chanted: "Yankee, go home!"

Boys will be boys, but a plastic bag turns it into attempted murder.

The ultranationalist said the bag over the head of the US service member is in retaliation for US forces apprehending a group of Ottoman Turkish soldiers for three days and putting hoods over their heads in Sulaimani province in the Kurdistan Region during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The TGB confirmed that 15 of its members were arrested, including their leader Kayahan Cetin, in a later post on X.

The USS Wasp had conducted joint-training drills with Ottoman Turkish military vessels in the Mediterranean Sea in mid-August. The maneuvers drew waves of criticism in Ottoman Turkish media, depicting the deployment as a part of an operation to support Israel.

The Ottoman Turkish defense ministry described the training at the time as a "routine" activity that did not benefit Israel, nor harm Paleostine.

Link

The Grand Turk

Turkey calls for uniting with Russia and Syria to fight terrorism

2023-12-09

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The leader of the Turkish Motherland Party, Dogu Perincek,

...a former revolutionary communist, he now calls himself a scientific socialist (whatever that means), and is apparently valued by the Erdogan government as a foreign policy expert. In practical terms, he is anti-West and pro-China, as they, like him, have moved beyond Maoism...

called for the creation of a Turkey-Russia-Syria military format to fight terrorists in northern Syria.

He noted that an armed solution is needed in Gaza, since the enclave cannot be helped by speeches alone.

“We call for the creation of a Turkey-Russia-Syria military format to combat terrorist groups in northern Syria,” Perincek said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

A lovely idea. But aren’t Turkish forces fighting the Syrian Arqb Army and Russia at the moment? Who is this “we” you speak of?

He noted that this would be the best support for the Palestinian movement and a counterweight to American expansion in the region.

Eh?

“A front will be opened against the United States and Zionism. This format has become a necessity. This will destroy American plans and ensure the territorial integrity of Syria,” he said.

Good lord. Mr. Perincek, esq. (he trained as a lawyer in Turkey, then got a PhD in Germany) is even more unsure about geography than I, a thing I had thought impossible.

As Regnum reported , the Israeli authorities launched Operation Iron Swords against Hamas after the country was subjected to a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, as well as the infiltration of militants into Israeli territory.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on December 5 expressed confidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not escape criminal punishment for war crimes in Gaza. Sooner or later he will stand trial and pay for the war crimes he committed, the Turkish leader said.

...even if they have to dig up his skeleton a millennium hence to put it on trial...

The Turkish President also noted that if international law is properly respected and these war crimes are punished, then this decision will become an example for all oppressors both in the Palestinian region and in other regions of the world.

Contrariwise, if international law were actually properly respected, Bibi would have been left to sit in peace under his vine and his fig tree while Turkish president Erdogan was the one to stand trial — it might yet happen!

On December 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the ceremony of presenting credentials by foreign ambassadors, noted that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, will continue to contribute to the resolution of pressing world problems.

According to him, Moscow will consistently defend approaches to ensuring equal and indivisible security, to forming a fair system of international economic relations, free from unfair competition, unilateral sanctions and politically motivated restrictions.

The Russian leader touched upon the topic of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which, according to Putin, has acquired the features of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Link

The Grand Turk

FETÖ scheme to infiltrate Foreign Ministry faces probe

2019-11-12

[DAILYSABAH] An indictment on the Gülenist Terror Group's (FETÖ) scheme to plant its members into the Foreign Ministry has concluded and been referred to the court by prosecutors. Prosecutors are asking for prison terms up to 42 years for dozens of suspects accused of cheating their way into several posts in the Turkish diplomatic services.

Expert reports included in the indictment say members of the terrorist group committed fraud on admission exams for Foreign Ministry civil servant posts. Suspects were identified by their use of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by FETÖ members, and their contacts with FETÖ handlers via payphones, a common method employed by the terrorist group for secretive communications.
Good idea. Use an encrypted messaging app used only by you. No one will suspect a thing!
FETÖ is accused of carrying out the July 15, 2016 coup attempt that killed 251 people and injured nearly 2,200 others. It has faced increased scrutiny since the coup attempt.

The Chief Prosecutor's Office in the capital Ankara has launched an investigation into the cases of cheating on a string of exams for Foreign Ministry employment last year. The investigation discovered collective cheating on exams for the lowest-level civil servant posts in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. FETÖ is accused of obtaining questions and answers of exams beforehand and distributing them to their followers. This follows a similar pattern to the terrorist group's efforts to infiltrate any institution they wanted to. Earlier investigations have revealed that between 2009 and 2014 – the year it was designated a national security threat – FETÖ stole questions and answers to exams for academic promotions, for the public sector as well as for rank promotions in law enforcement, the judiciary and bureaucracy. The group then supplied the answers to its members, effectively running an infiltration scheme to further its clout, dating back to the 1980s. Several members of the terrorist group were already convicted of mass cheating on a nationwide exam for civil servants.

Authorities have identified 246 suspects who passed the exams thanks to FETÖ's cheating scheme and were employed at the ministry. Four suspects who were members of a committee in charge of ministry's employment were also charged in the investigation. Arrest warrants were issued for 250 suspects in May and so far 105 suspects were detained, while the rest either remain at large or are imprisoned under other FETÖ-related cases.

Link

The Grand Turk

Turkish prosecutors say 'no concrete evidence of Ergenekon's presence'

2018-12-03

Tales from the first gutting of Turkey’s army. Bunches of Turkey’s best generals, colonels, captains, and such have been sitting in jail for years, accused of being involved in this oddly named conspiracy. Only now it is finally being admitted that the bunches were telling the truth about not conspiring.

[Hurriyet Daily News] The prosecution of a court case involving a reported conspiracy to overthrow ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor....
’s government dating back a decade has said the existence of the organization in question could not be conclusively proven, according to judicial sources on Friday.

"It has been found that the leadership, membership and criminal activity could not be established of the organization, as well as its existence," the prosecutors said of the "armed terrorist organization Ergenekon", submitting its official opinion on the case.

"There is no concrete evidence of the presence of an Ergenekon terrorist organization, and thus a non-existent terrorist organization can neither have managers, members, or supporters, nor it is possible to commit crimes for it," said the prosecution.

Prosecutors asked for jail terms for 28 suspects in the Istanbul court, while recommending charges be dropped for 199 others.

Among the 28, four had received aggravated life sentences for the killing of a judge and wounding four others in a 2006 armed attack at Turkey's top administrative court.

The original Ergenekon conspiracy probe, dating to 2007, led to trials in 2013 of military officers, politicians, academics, and journalists, but later the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned hundreds of convictions in the case.

Last year, ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish authorities said the 2013 Ergenekon trial was based on fabricated evidence, and blamed the prosecutions on Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) member soldiers trying to purge the military of rival officers.

FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup on July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

Link

The Grand Turk

Opposition journalists ‘acted with Gülenists,’ claims prosecutor

2016-11-02

Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, which saw a wave of detentions targeting executives and columnists early on Oct. 31, has published reports aimed at “stirring public disorder in line with the aims of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ),” according to the probe’s prosecutor.

The purge enters a new phase. Erdogan now shuts down the opposition media. Soon the opposition pols will have no voice. Then they too go to the Turkish prisons...

According to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s probe, Cumhuriyet is accused of “committing crimes on behalf of FETÖ and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] without being a member,” aiming to “conceal the truth with manipulation and publish stories that aimed to make Turkey ungovernable.”

Reminder, Hurriyet Daily is a pro-government mouthpiece.

The prosecutor noted that Cumhuriyet was the target of the Gülenists during the Ergenekon coup plot case, but after the December 2013 probes Ergenekon’s prosecutors were involved in daily meetings with Cumhuriyet’s then editor-in-chief Can Dündar, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Nov. 1.

The Ergenekon case was a massive probe into hundreds of senior military personnel, journalists and politicians on charges of attempting to stage a coup against the Turkish government. It is widely believed to be a conspiracy plotted by Gülenists.

The December 2013 corruption cases targeted figures close to the government and resulted in lasting enmity between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Gülenists.

According to the probe, Cumhuriyet started “publishing articles originating from FETÖ” after the probe cases and became the “public relations” outlet of terrorist organizations.

The charges also include the daily’s articles published after the failed July 15 coup attempt, believed to have been masterminded by the Gülenists. It complained that Cumhuriyet “made the counter-terrorism operations look like wars.”

The prosecutor also claimed that Cumhuriyet described anti-coup demonstrations as being marked by “hatred,” the post-coup attempt suspensions as “purges,” and the “resistance of the people against the coup-plotting soldiers as chaos.”

Link

The Grand Turk

Turkish court overturns 275 convictions in Erdogan coup plot case

2016-04-22

[FRANCE24] ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
’s appeals court has overturned coup plot convictions imposed in 2013 on a retired military chief and other senior figures in a case then regarded as clipping the wings of the secularist and military establishment, state media said on Thursday.

The ruling closes the final chapter in a nine-year legal drama whose twists and turns have tracked the shifting balance of power at the heart of the Turkish establishment.

In August 2013, ex-military chief General Ilker Basbug was sentenced to life in jail for his role in the "Ergenekon" plot to overthrow then-Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted government.

Politicians, lawyers and journalists were also among 275 defendants in the case, which emerged in 2007 when an arms cache was discovered in a house in an Istanbul suburb.

It was at the time championed by Erdogan and his supporters as a battle against anti-democratic forces and to tame a military that had seen itself as the guardian of secularism, carrying out three coups and forcing a fourth, Islamist-led government from power in the second half of the 20th century.

In Thursday’s ruling, the appeals court said there had been no "Ergenekon terror group", and that evidence had been collected illegally, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Sledgehammer

After the 2013 convictions, the case became entwined in a power struggle between Erdogan and U.S.-based Muslim holy man Fethullah Gulen, whose influential followers in the judiciary had been seen as key to the Ergenekon convictions.

Erdogan accused Gulen of using his influence within state institutions to try to unseat him in a coup plot. As their feud deepened, the Ergenekon defendants were released in March 2014, with the government suggesting they too may have been unfairly treated and the victims of a Gulenist plot.

Another trial over an alleged 2003 plot against Erdogan, the "Sledgehammer" case, ended with acquittal for more than 200 military officers in March last year.

The prosecutor who led the Ergenekon investigation, viewed as close to Gulen, fled to Armenia in August as an arrest warrant was issued for him over his role in a separate investigation of alleged corruption in Erdogan’s inner circle.

That corruption inquiry was thrown out by the courts and the judiciary and police subjected to a systematic purge of suspected Gulen supporters.

Police operations have subsequently targeted thousands of supporters of Gulen, accused of leading what prosecutors described as a "Gulenist Terror Group" trying to overthrow Erdogan. Gulen denies the accusations.

Link

The Grand Turk

Demirtas: Erdogan staged coup against Parliament, ruling party

2016-03-03

[TODAYSZAMAN] Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Selahattin Demirtas has said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
joined ranks with potential coup supporters and carried out a coup against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and Parliament in order to prevent anyone from toppling him from power.

"We are living through a coup period right now. We have already had a coup; it's happened. It was after July 7. And now, we have a coup government leading ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
," Demirtas said during an exclusive interview with Haberdar online news portal that was made available on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"There could have been a coup against Erdogan; instead, what he did was to join forces with coup supporters and carry out his own coup against the government. All of which is why the government has been completely bypassed at this stage. Not even a police officer will listen to [Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu," he said.

Since the June 7 general election of last year, in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Erdogan's former party, failed to win enough seats to rule as a single party, Turkey has been hit with violence due to festivities between the Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) following the end of a settlement process between the government and the PKK last July.

Demirtas said that when Erdogan restarted the war with the PKK, he knew that the government was not in control of all the instruments of the state and that it controlled neither the police, the military nor the bureaucracy.

"When the war that he himself had provoked broke out, Erdogan saw that the government actually couldn't fight against the PKK effectively. ... I think Erdogan needed to make a choice. He saw that he was going to lose. ... The war that he provoked after June 7 caused a level of social outrage he hadn't predicted as we headed toward the Nov. 1 [2015 snap election]. He had to make a choice. In order to get the state institutions that weren't tied to him, like the military and the police, to fight for him, he had to strike compromises with them. This is why he had private meetings with the Ergenekon people, the supporters of [ultra-nationalist Workers' Party (IP) leader Dogu] Perincek, the former BBP [Grand Unity Party] people and so on," Demirtas said.

Link

The Grand Turk

From a year ago: Erdogan's Turkey and Iranian Intelligence

2015-11-17

The transformation of Turkey, a frontline state which possesses the second-largest army in the Atlantic Alliance, into something like a frenemy on a good day, from any Western viewpoint, has led to awkward questions about what's really going on in Ankara. These have been asked for years, with whispers mounting about covert Iranian influence at the highest levels of politics and security in Turkey, but it's been easy to dismiss much of this as evidence-free conspiracy-mongering of the sort beloved by Turks of all political colorations. Yet there is now convincing proof that Tehran indeed has a disturbing degree of secret influence in Turkey's ruling circles.

There's no small irony in this, as Erdogan's governance has feasted upon allegations of a Turkish "deep state," a shadowy cabal of secularists termed Ergenekon that the AKP claims have been pulling the secret strings in Ankara for decades. Belief in this "deep state" has provided the AKP with the excuse to jail and otherwise harass hundreds of political foes who deeply oppose the country's Islamist turn under Erdogan. Yet it turns out that Turkey's real "secret team" is the AKP's own, which serves the party's religiously-based agenda and is tightly connected to Iranian intelligence.

The key player in this plot is a shadowy terrorist group termed Tawhid-Salam that goes back to the mid-1990s and has been blamed for several terrorist incidents, including the 2011 bombing of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, which wounded several people, as well as a thwarted bombing of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, in early 2012. Tawhid-Salam, which also goes by the revealing name "Jerusalem Army," has long been believed to be a front for Iranian intelligence, particularly its most feared component, the elite Quds (Jerusalem) Force of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (Pasdaran), which handles covert action abroad, including terrorism in many countries. It also is believed to be behind the murders of several anti-Tehran activists in Turkey in the 1990's, using Tawhid-Salam as a cut-out.

For years, Turkish investigators who have tried to determine who stands behind Tawhid-Salam haven't gotten very far, meeting obstruction at every turn, reportedly from the highest levels in Ankara, leading to suspicions that Erdogan and the AKP have something to hide. In recent months, however, the terror group's covert mask has begun to fall, thanks to mounting evidence that Iran indeed is pulling the strings behind Tawhid-Salam, which plays a key role in the Quds Force's global terror campaign against Israel and Western interests.

Similarly, Tawhid-Salam operatives have been observed surveilling an important NATO radar base in Turkey, a sensitive site that monitors possible Iranian missile launches, while other members of the group were witnessed conducting surveillance on the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, apparently in preparation for a possible terrorist attack. The group's interest in nuclear research materials, discovered during a raid on a Tawhid-Salam safehouse, caused notable alarm in certain circles. Yet, despite the fact that Turkish counterintelligence has repeatedly witnessed Tawhid-Salam members meeting with known Qods Force operatives, nothing was ever done to crack down on the group.

This may have something to do with the fact that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence, is apparently on the Pasdaran payroll too, and may have secret ties to Tehran going back almost twenty years. Rumors about Fidan, a member of Erdogan's inner circle, who has headed the country's powerful National Intelligence Organization (MIT) since 2010, have swirled in counterintelligence services worldwide for years. Israeli intelligence in particular, which once had a close relationship with MIT, has long regarded Fidan as Tehran's man, and has curtailed its intelligence cooperation with Turkey commensurately, believing that all information shared with Fidan was going to Iran.

Privately, U.S. intelligence officials too have worried about Fidan's secret ties, not least because MIT includes Turkey's powerful signals intelligence (SIGINT) service, which has partnered with NATO for decades, including the National Security Agency. As an NSA document stolen and leaked by Edward Snowden explained: "U.S. intelligence reporting in recent years indicates possible Iranian connections with Dr. Hakan Fidan, the head of the MIT/SIB. The possible impact of these connections to the US SIGINT relationship is unknown at this time."

With Hakan providing top-cover, it's no surprise that Turkish investigations into Tawhid-Salam never get very far. Other top figures assessed as being part of the conspiracy include Interior Minister Efkan Ala and ruling AKP spokesperson Besir Atalay. Officials who possess hard evidence of ties between the group and Tehran's spies -- including video and audio surveillance in abundance, as well as the testimony of Tawhid-Salam members who have defected to the police -- have found themselves thwarted, harassed, and even jailed by the AKP. In a typical case, Ali Fuat Yilmazer, former head of the Istanbul police's intelligence unit, conducted an extensive investigation that revealed Tawhid-Salam had penetrated the Turkish government and the AKP at the highest levels, and was a tool of the Pasdaran. For this, he was thrown in jail on trumped-up charges.
Members of the opposition have publicly stated that the AKP is directly linked to Tawhid-Salam and Erdogan's cadres are covering for the group -- and for its Iranian masters -- by stopping investigations, arresting those who speak out, and spreading disinformation while allowing known Iranian intelligence agents to escape Turkish dragnets. Of the 251 suspects named in the thwarted official investigation into Tawhid-Salam, twenty-eight were Iranians, all of them suspected Qods Force operatives; none were called to testify and the AKP did its best to prevent press coverage of the matter. For his part, Erdogan has dismissed the entire issue, terming Tawhid-Salam "fake" and "imaginary."

To say that Ankara seems to be working at cross-purposes in the matter of Tawhid-Salam is too kind. A special prosecutor's investigation of the group, which lasted three years, recently wrapped up with no findings. Prosecutors did not call a single relevant witness to testify, although many suspected Pasdaran/Tawhid Salam operatives have been identified in Turkey, while AKP higher-ups took over the investigation, ensuring it would go nowhere, instead turning it around as a vehicle to harass the AKP's enemies who ask questions about the party's linkages to Tehran. None of the 103 suspects believed to be directly involved in terrorism, including known Qods Force members, who were identified by police inquiries into Tawhid-Salam, were called to share their information with prosecutors.

Link

The Grand Turk

Former chief of general staff says Bush administration supported plot against Turkish army

2015-10-08

[Hurriyet Daily News] Former Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug presented his defense at a second hearing before the Supreme Court of Appeals in the Ergenekon coup plot case on Oct. 7.

Former Chief of General Staff said a plot was laid against the Turkish Armed Forces.

Basbug was asked who was behind the "game" played against the Turkish Armed Forces and replied, "The George W. Bush administration has supported the game against the Turkish Armed Forces," adding that the Gulen movement was the main perpetrator of the violation of law via their cadre placed in the judiciary and police department.

With statements such as "What they have asked and we did not give?" and "We were cheated," the U.S. government clearly stated they had given support to the Gulen movement, Basbug also said.

He was targeted by the Gulen movement because of his statements against the group, Basbug said.

The Ergenekon coup plot trial, considered the most important legal battle in recent Turkish history, reached an end on Aug. 5, 2013, after Istanbul's 13th High Criminal Court handed down severe punishments.

The verdict trial, which decided the fate of 275 suspects at the end of a five-year process, resulted in hundreds of years of imprisonment in total and several aggravated life sentences for a series of the country's high-ranking army members, journalists and academics.

Suspects faced a series of charges from a combined mass of different cases, but with the overall focus around their implication in the Ergenekon network, which was ultimately acknowledged by the court as a terrorist organization that had attempted to overthrow the government.

Link

The Grand Turk

Defendants demand quashing of Ergenekon coup plot case at Turkey's top court

2015-10-07

[Hurriyet Daily News] ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's Supreme Court of Appeals held the first appeals hearing in the Ergenekon coup plot case on Oct. 6, months after the Chief Prosecutor's Office asked for a reversal of the rulings in the case.

At the first hearing, the chief judge of the court pledged to offer a wide opportunity for the presentation of defenses, while suspects demanded the quashing of the controversial and long-running case.

Former Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug; former daily Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief and now Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Mustafa Balbay; and Levent Ersöz, a retired general and suspected member of JITEM, an alleged intelligence unit of the gendarmerie, were among the suspects who attended the first hearing on Oct. 6.

"The law has been violated every day in this case. That's why I ask for the quashing of the case on its merits," said Dogu Perincek, one of the defendants and the leader of the Homeland Party.

"In line with America's plans, the 'F Organization' committed this crime," Perincek said, describing the Ergenekon case as "the biggest crime committed against the Republic." By saying the "F Organization" he was apparently referring to followers of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, who he accuses of manipulating the case.

Balbay also demanded that the case be thrown out. "We want to say, 'There are judges in Ankara.' In spite of everything, the legal experiences of this country cannot tolerate such an outrageous file," he said.

Adnan Turkkan, another defendant, said he was included in the case simply because he was the founding leader of the Youth Union of Turkey (TGB).

Link

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