Turkish leaders say failed coup was decades in making
TURKEY | ISTANBUL — Turkish investigators call it the ultimate long game.
In 1986, the Turkish military expelled dozens of cadets suspected of loyalty to a young Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen, seen as a potential threat to the country’s strict secular rule.
Officials, a magazine reported at the time, said an alleged recruiter had told the students to work their way through the ranks and wait for instructions that would come in a few decades.
Fast forward 30 years to July 15, when renegade officers staged a failed coup and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Gulen of orchestrating it.
Gulen, now based in Pennsylvania, denies any involvement, but a rising tide of allegations challenges the moderate image promoted by his Islamist movement and casts it as a cover for secret designs on Turkish power that included efforts to infiltrate state institutions decades ago.
In the 1970s, when Turkey was run by a military-backed, secular government, the group seemed like a conventional religious movement that attracted young, middle-class recruits through a successful network of schools and dormitories.
Gulen, who had been associated with Islamic mysticism, promoted a message of tolerance and charity along with Turkish patriotism. His group — known as Hizmet, Turkish for “service” — raised money through donations from individuals and businesses.
COMMENTS IN THE 1980S
Authorities point to Gulen’s own words as evidence of his designs. In comments recorded in the 1980s, Gulen referred to crackdowns on Islamists in Syria and Egypt and told a group of followers to bide their time, saying: “You must move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers.”
Gulen, who later said those remarks were misinterpreted, moved to the United States in the late 1990s while facing trial on charges of plotting to overthrow Turkey’s government.
In 2002 elections, Gulen’s followers supported the candidacy of the former Istanbul mayor, who himself had been jailed for several months by secular authorities and won with the backing of a pious Muslim class that had been sidelined to decades. His name was Erdogan. Erdogan insists he put up with the Gulenists as a practical matter: He needed all the help he could get to defeat the secularists.
The military leadership remained unconvinced. Ilker Basbug, who was Turkey’s military chief from 2008 to 2010, said in a recent interview with CNN Turk television that he warned Erdogan about the threat from Gulen’s backers in the military.
Erdogan initially supported some of the investigations, but he eventually disowned them amid revelations of forged evidence and other irregularities.
Meanwhile, the Turkish leader’s alliance with Gulen was unraveling as he sought to dismantle what he described as a “parallel state” in the police and other institutions.
Tensions rose in 2014, when Erdogan switched from prime minister to president in a move seen by critics as a bid to amass even more power.
Finally, on July 15, elements of the military rose up. They occupied airports, bridges and military bases, took the military chief hostage and accused the government of eroding democracy and the rule of law. Rival forces clashed, and Erdogan supporters took to the streets in support of their president. In all, 272 people were dead.
Erdogan was quick to point the finger: He said the coup was the work of Gulenists. Gulen condemned the coup.