GEOPOLITICS: EURASIAN BLOC IN TURKEY

Erdoğan and the Kemalists
 Against Gülen and the US

On July 15th, at around 23:00, the press reported a military coup d'etat in Turkey. In Ankara, shots rang out, and there were military planes and helicopters over the city. Within minutes, Turkish Prime Minister Yıldırım announced an attempt at a military coup. The main airports of the country were closed and many flights are delayed or canceled. Around midnight, martial law was imposed in the country. Events unfolded rapidly. The world's media, under the control of globalist elites, began to cover events as if the rebels had almost succeeded. Media actively disseminated the rumors that President Erdogan had reportedly fled the country.

In fact, the president was ready to fight to the last minute and urged the Turkish people to take to the streets to defend democracy: "I look forward to all our people on the streets, in the squares. I do not believe that those who attempted the coup have achieved their goal, and they will suffer the most severe punishment,” the Turkish President said. Hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens came out onto the street. At about two o'clock in the morning, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said that the instigators of the coup were arrested. The head of Turkish intelligence Them Yilmaz confirmed this news. At about four o'clock in the morning, Erdogan addressed the nation and directly pointed out the instigators of the coup.

Mutineers managed from the United States

The attempt at a military coup was undertaken by the supporters of the Islamist leader Fethullah Gulen and his movement "Khizmat". Gülen lives in Pennsylvania in the United States and cooperates with US intelligence agencies. He is known as the main opponent of Erdogan, who was formerly his ally. It was Gulen’s structures that stood behind the notorious “Ergenekon” case when thousands of high-ranking military men were thrown in jail, including the entire leadership of the Turkish General Staff.

Gulen's network acted on orders from the US once the top brass Kemalists, whose ideologue was the prominent politician Dogu Perincek, raised the issue of radically accelerating Turkey's course of rapprochement with Russia, Iran and China, and even withdrawing from NATO. Gülen’s structure penetrated up to the very top echelon of the government and intelligence services. Erdogan understood the danger of this sect only at the last moment, when Gulenists, once again on US orders, attempted to carry out a color revolution on Taksim Square by trying to unite Kemalists, liberals and everybody opposing Erdogan. The following purges, however, did not liquidate the whole structure.

The pro-US military coup attempt was made at the very moment when Erdogan reversed his course in foreign policy and began to build a strategic partnership along the Ankara-Moscow axis, including changing his position on the Syrian issue. In order to prevent the creation of a Eurasian axis of Ankara-Moscow, the US attempted to organize a coup by resorting to their networks ("Khizmat" movement and the supporters of the Islamist leader Gülen residing in the United States and actively cooperating with US intelligence agencies).

An important factor which incited the conspirators to decisive action was the previous disclosure of Gülen's network of supporters in the armed forces of Turkey. A week earlier, an investigation began on most of the participants of the mutiny mainly involving middle-level officers in the Air Force and Gendarmerie. They were accused of creating a parallel structure tied to Gülen and thus to his American curators. US intelligence agencies gave the green light to a coup in order to prevent the effective liquidation of their networks. Judging by the actions of the rebels, who bombed the President’s residence, the task included, as a minimum, the physical elimination of the president and prime minister. This way, even in the event of the coup’s failure, the pro-American Ahmet Davutoglu would have the best chance of coming to power being the only strong and popular leader left in the Justice and Development Party.

The Turkish Air Force is the most pro-US branch of the Turkish military. The coup attempt also reveals the existence of Gulen’s network in the Air Force responsible for ruining Russian-Turkish relations, as Katehon explained earlier. According to Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek, among those military men who organized the mutiny “was the man who was involved in the incident with the Russian Su-24.” According to some sources, the the pilot was a member of the “gang” of Fethullah Gulen, known as the “parallel state.”

The mayor of the capital of Turkey declared: “It was this parallel state that spoiled our relations with Russia. I am saying one hundred percent that one of the pilots from this structure was the one who participated in the incident [with the Su-24]. He was one of the participants of the putsch. Until today, we have kept this to ourselves and not announced it. But I, Melih Gokcek, say that it was these rascals who spoiled our relations with Russia.”

However, the coup attempt failed. We can predict an escalation of tension between the US and Turkey, as Turkey may raise the question of withdrawal from NATO. The development of strategic partnership with Russia should be expected.

The failed coup marked a change in the balance in the Turkish elite. Previously, they could be divided into three main groups: the Kemalists primarily made up from military circles (it was against them that the Ergenekon case was initiated), Gulen’s supporters, and Erdogan’s moderate Islamists. Following Ahmet Davutoglu’s resignation and the change of Turkey’s geopolitical course towards rapprochement with Russia and Syria, Erdogan’s foreign policy positions and his allies grew closer to the Kemalists. The fact that the military high command most of the army did not support the mutiny is evidence of the formation of an alliance between Erdogan and the Kemalists. Geopolitics plays a major role here. The Gulenists surely tried to enlist the supporters of secular Turkish nationalism while still leaving differences on domestic policy. But geopolitics proved to be more important. 

It is significant that in this situation, the Turkish people almost unanimously supported the not too popular Erdogan because his opponents carried with them the inevitable end of Turkey, as does anyone who is not working for national interests, but for the interests of moribund US hegemony. 

[Katehon| Originaly posted: July 18, 2016]

Why is Erdoğan Shifting the Coup Blame to Fetullah Gülen?

by 

Alexander Azadgan 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the uprising on Fetullah Gulen, a retired Islamic cleric and former political ally, who once had a sizeable following in the Turkish police, judiciary and military.

The president has purged the police and judiciary of reputed Gulen sympathizers over the past two years, and had been due to hold a meeting of the body overseeing the military, the High Military Council. There were reports he was planning to oust anyone still linked with Gulen.

Fetullah Gulen, whose movement denied any involvement, now lives in exile in the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania, USA. Erdogan has tried, thus far unsuccessfully, to obtain his extradition to face allegations of supporting terrorism.

A reclusive Muslim cleric/super-rich Turkish businessman who runs one of the world's largest charter school and private school networks, is very close to the CIA and has been more or less at war with Erdogan for the last few years. Living in exile on a Monroe County farm, he denied claims by Turkey's prime minister that his progressive religious movement is behind a corruption probe designed to undermine the Asian nation's government.

Fethullah Gulen, who has lived near Saylorsburg since 1999, condemned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for characterizing the corruption probe as a Western plot to destabilize the nation.

Gulen, 72, who lives at the Golden Generation Worship Center in Ross Township, is seen by followers as a tolerant and moderating voice in global Islam.

He has made his life's work spreading the influence of Turkey through an international network of schools, including about 130 public charter schools in the United States, three of which are in Pennsylvania.

Turkey has been a relatively moderate Muslim country until recently where it has covertly allied itself with ISIS terrorists in Syria. It is literally on the boundary between Europe and Asia.

The crisis in Turkey, the most serious challenge to Erdogan’s rule in his 11 years as Turkey's leader, is somewhat propagated [in the Western media] as the result of a growing rift between Erdogan and Gulen, a former ally with quiet influence in the police and the judiciary. 24 people, including the sons of two ministers and the head of a state-owned bank, have been formally charged in connection with the corruption inquiry that Erdogan has called a "dirty operation" to weaken his rule.


 In response, Erdogan has fired or moved to different posts about 70 police officers, including the powerful head of Istanbul's force, in a widening crackdown on the force that launched the investigation, Reuters reported.

In a speech in Turkish posted on his website Friday, Fethullah Gulen used strong language critical of Erdogan's response, the Wall Street Journal reported. "Those who don't see the thief but go after those trying to catch the thief ... let God bring fire to their houses, ruin their homes, break their unities," Gulen said.

In a further statement on his website, Gulen denied any link to the probe and called on the government to let independent prosecutors and the judiciary investigate and adjudicate the charges. He said Erdogan's claims of an attack on the secular government were a strategy to distract the public from the corruption.

Gulen's supporters in the Turkish AK Party share common ties with the religiously minded Turkish middle class that helped to elect Erdogan's government in 2002 who are now disenchanted. For that reason, Gulen's influence is seen by some as a potential factor in national elections in March of 2017.

Gulen's movement in Turkey began in the 1960s, promoting religious tolerance and emphasizing the importance of science and education to a moral society.

According to a June congressional report on Turkey, Gulen condemns terrorism. He promotes dialogue between religions, and cross-cultural understanding. He teaches that Islam is compatible with modern democratic societies.

Critics in the United States, however, cast suspicion that Gulen's movement is a base to spread Islamic law, or Sharia.

In the charter schools connected to Gulen, including Truebright Science Academy in Philadelphia, no religion is taught. All emphasize science, math and technology.

Two years ago, the former principal of Truebright tried unsuccessfully to open a charter school in Allentown.

Gulen has said he would like to go back to Turkey but that his return might be used to stir political trouble, or that those who had persecuted him in the past might try to do so again. He left in 1999, shortly before the start of a case against him on charges of plotting to destroy the secular state and establish Islamic law.

He was acquitted but has lived ever since at the Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center, constructed on 26 acres in a Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania in the 1990s as a center for Turkish-American children. [Katehon| Originaly posted: July 18, 2016]

SU-24 Incident
 Trace of Gülen and CIA

by 

Can Ataklı

Can Ataklı, a journalist from Sözcü Gazetesi, said in his column that he had recently met with a former officer and asked him if Fethullah’s agents were in the Turkish army. (Fethullah Gülen is the co-founder of Nur Movement, lurking in Pennsylvania (the US); this sect is in opposition to Erdogan).

He said that the Nur Movement had been within the army for the long time, despite the repression, it had strengthened its positions.

When Atakli asked the officer about the rumors that the Russian pilot had been shot down by Fethullah’s pilot, he reminded Atakli that he had previously written about it.

The following is an excerpt from the Turkish author’s article.

“I remembered that he wrote an article on this issue. It was entitled: “The Palace established its viewpoint, but the Pilot Decided to Shoot Down the Russian Plane himself.” The officer said to me that he was the first one to say it, before the prime minister was said to have ordered it, or that the Turkish air forces decided to do it. The president made a hint that it was the pilot’s initiative. I think that he wanted to say it.

Then the former officer remembered the leaked document by Wikileaks and said that, of course, shooting down the Russian aircraft was madness: “I think both the president, the government, as well as the Defense Minister, were shocked. But they could cope with it.”

Then the journalist said that he found the document mentioned by the former officer. The document states that the tension between Erdogan and head of the Ministry Necdet Özel appeared after the Turkish aircraft crash in Syria on June 22nd, 2012. Six days after, the US Embassy sent a dispatch to the center via e-mail, which spoke about the tension between Erdogan and Necdet Özel; Wikileaks published the document.

The US Embassy said to the Department of State that Necdet Özel insisted on the invasion of Syria, and that about 400,000 solders were ready to initiate the intervention. But Erdogan resisted, saying that NATO would be furious.

The message said that Erdogan doesn't want to clash with Russia, and NATO wouldn’t give their approval. It also said that Erdogan is anxious about Abdullah Gül, who controls the higher commanders, and if he allies with Necdet Özel, Erdogan will be forced to resign.

The former officer also said that the Syrian policy was incorrect from the very beginning: “I can say that Erdogan didn’t want to wage war against Syria; it was all for show to gain dividends and support so that he appears like a hero before the nation and is the beneficiary of strengthened politician power. In fact, he doesn’t want to wage war.”

The journalist said that, after analyzing all the facts, he concluded that Fethullah’s pilot shot down the Russian aircraft.[Katehon| Originaly posted: July 4, 2016]

Source: Katehon