Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton has dismissed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s claims that Fethullah Gülen masterminded the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, calling them propaganda aimed at consolidating power, Turkish Minute reported.
Bolton also denied any US involvement in the coup, which Erdoğan and advisors have previously implied.
Speaking in an interview with Turkish journalist İbrahim Haskoloğlu published on Tuesday, Bolton described Erdoğan’s narrative surrounding Gülen, a Turkish cleric who lived in the US for many years until his death in October and inspired a global civic initiative labeled by Turkey as a “terrorist organization,” as a strategic move to justify crackdowns on opposition groups. He criticized the evidence Turkey provided to the US for Gülen’s extradition, noting it was insufficient for legal action.
President Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement has strongly denied involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Bolton pointed to Erdoğan’s broader efforts to suppress dissent, asserting that the coup claims served as a pretext for strengthening his control over Turkey.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants as well as 24,706 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
Since the coup attempt, more than 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. There are at least 13,251 people in prison who are being held in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism charges in Gülen-linked trials.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
