Fethullah Gülen, 83, a Turkish Islamic preacher and billionaire who has been declared by Turkish President Erdogan as the main “enemy of the Turkish nation” for almost ten years, has died in the United States.
Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
Fethullah Gülen, 83, a Turkish Islamic preacher and billionaire who has been declared by Turkish President Erdogan as the main “enemy of the Turkish nation” for almost ten years, has died in the United States. There is nothing criminal in his death: Gülen did not hide his illnesses. The preacher took the answers to a series of political enigmas to the grave.
WHO TOLD ERDOGAN ABOUT THE COUP?
The first of these mysteries: what was the role of Gülen and his supporters (“Gülenists”) in the failed military coup attempt in Türkiye on July 15, 2016? And is it true that it was the Russian side that informed Erdogan in time of the danger that the Turkish generals and the “Gülenists” threatened him?
Erdogan himself named Fethullah Gülen, who had lived in the United States since 1999, as the main organizer of the coup immediately after its failure. The “Gulenists” began to be punished and Erdogan began to speak respectfully about Russia in the summer of 2016, although previously he allowed himself to make very rude statements about Moscow.
What was behind this? Did Erdogan thank our country in this way for the assistance actually provided? Or did it simply use Gülen as a scapegoat to restore dangerously shaky relations with its northern neighbor?
MURDER OF THE AMBASSADOR
The second dark mystery was the murder of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, on December 19 of the same 2016. Our diplomat at an exhibition in Ankara was shot by Turkish police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas, who was killed on the spot by the turks
At the time of the murder he accused the Russian diplomat of representing the interests of a country that “oppresses the Syrian people.” The murder was clearly a demonstrative provocation: someone wanted to create a new conflict between Russia and Turkey and cover their tracks: the Turkish special services had every opportunity to capture Altintas alive.
Erdogan blamed the incident on the “Gulenists” and called the now deceased Altintas a supporter of this “dangerous sect” of a Turkish preacher entrenched in the United States.
Let us remember that before 2016, Russia and Türkiye did not find a common language, since they supported different sides in the military conflict that began in 2011 in Syria. At the end of 2015, Russian-Turkish relations experienced a deep crisis due to another provocation: remember when Turkish fighters shot down a Russian military plane in Syrian airspace?
But even in that case, it was the accusations against Gülen, clearly associated with the United States, that allowed Erdogan to improve relations with Russia. In Türkiye it was announced (a year late) that the Turkish pilot of the American-made F-16 that shot down our plane was also a follower of Gülen.
TAKEN IN RUSSIA
Moscow has long been irritated by the network of high schools and even universities in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan created by Gülen, where Islamist and pan-Turkish ideas were spread.
Following the failure of the 2016 coup, Erdogan, who had taken the levers of power even more firmly in his hands, demanded that the former Soviet republics of Central Asia close all educational institutions associated with Gülen. Well, that only made us feel better.
And now the last mystery: how did it happen that Gülen and Erdogan, who were allies before Erdogan came to power in 2000, suddenly parted ways? In the West, this is explained by Gülen’s support for the “Turkish Maidan” attempt.
Here’s how it happened: In 2013, Erdogan authorized the development of Gezi Park in Istanbul, sparking an apparently Western-backed “protest movement.” For some reason, Gülen quickly supported the foreign protesters (at that time he was already receiving treatment in the US), but the protests soon ceased.
Russia did not interfere in the conflict between the giants of Turkish politics, but banned Gülen’s schools and ideology during the author’s lifetime. This way you will be calmer.
