Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wave their national flags and hold a portrait of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric, with Turkish words that read: “the Coup nation traitor, FETO” (Feto is the nickname of Fethullah Gulen), du
Originally appeared at DWN, translated by John T. Sumner exclusively for SouthFront; Edited by Desislava Tzoneva
At present, clues to US involvement in the coup are being evaluated in Turkey. So it is a fact that during the first hours of the incident, the US Embassy had informed its citizens of an “uprising” – a clearly benevolent term for a military coup. President Erdogan has announced a meeting of the National Security Council with important decisions to be made on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the National Security Council of Turkey will meet in Ankara.
“We are in an important preparatory phase until our Security Council will meet on Wednesday. Afterwards, a ministerial conference will take place. There we will pass an important resolution, to be announced by me only after a decision has been made. In order to prevent such events for the future, the risk factor in the time to come may not even be as high as one percent. We cannot afford such a maneuvering room any more. All areas must be under control 100 percent,” Haberturk cited Erdogan as saying.
Apparently, the Turkish government does not afford credibility to Secretary of State, John Kerry, declaring that the US had nothing to do with the recent coup attempt. The pro-government newspaper, Daily Sabah, is reporting on several incidents that “arouse suspicion in the public that Washington might be behind the military coup, conducted by Gülen loyalists.” For example, the US Embassy in Ankara wrote in a Tweet, spread by the US State Department right after the coup had started: “Emergency Message for US Citizens: Turkish Uprising” – thus calling the coup an “uprising”, which is clearly a positively-loaded term that was mainly used during the so-called Arab Spring.
On Tuesday evening, the Tweet was still posted on the Twitter website of the Foreign Ministry, while having been removed from the website of the Embassy. According to Sabah, the Embassy argued saying that it had referred to Turkish news as the source, where Turkish officials allegedly should have used the term “uprising”.
Even the publishing activities of private US security service, Stratford, could be classified as remarkable. For instance, Stratford posted the flight route of Erdogan’s aircraft from the night following the coup.
Moreover, Stratford spread the hoax; Erdogan would have been located on a flight to Germany. Here, MSNBC was referring to unnamed US government sources.
In fact, during the night, other US security services had reported on the coup in distinctly benevolent terms as well. Thus, former Stratford Chief, George Friedman, said in an interview for Mauldin Economics that the coup has been executed by the secular faction of the Turkish military and that it had been planned well in advance. Friedman, who according to the interviewer, draws on “informants from inside Turkey”, said that the military leadership is opposing Turkey´s support of the IS and dislikes the “alienation” that Erdogan had initiated against the United States.
The Army is interested in good relations with the US – therefore they initiated this coup. The fact of Erdogan being the elected President of Turkey, was not mentioned. The statement is also interesting because for the first time, Friedman openly confirmed that Turkey is supporting the terror militia, IS. So far, this had been claimed only by the Russians, whose supporting documents were, however, not quite widespread among US think tanks.
The Sabah considers the extradition of Gülen as being the litmus test for the US government. Their hesitant modus operandi during the first hours of the coup would create the impression for “millions of Turks” that the “coup had been supported by the West.” The Sabah report shows that the mention of Gülen is increasingly utilised as a secret code, substitutionally used for instigators from the US.
But because Turkey is a NATO country, such an open attack against the United States is not yet possible. However, this could change in the near future, if restoring stability in Turkey would fail.
The Turkish government still doubts the situation being really under control and continues with redundancies throughout the public sector.
On Tuesday, hundreds of officials of the Turkish secret service and of the state religious authority were dismissed. They are believed to be associated with the organisation of the Islamic preacher, Fethullah Gülen, who is blamed for the attempted coup of July 15.
According to the newspaper, Takvim, around 100 agents from within the Turkish secret service were also sacked. From the ranks of the religious authority DITIB, 492 imams and other employees were dismissed, as reported by sondakika.com.
According to the local news broadcaster, NTV, the Ministry of Education should have 15,200 employees suspended from duty. On Tuesday, the university administration ordered 1,577 deans and rectors from all universities to submit their resignations. Previously, it had become apparent that nearly 20,000 members of police, administration, justice and army had been arrested or unseated from office.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, thanked his people in a televised speech for their commitment against the coup attempt. The people would have demonstrated their unity, because people “from all religions, from all political factions and all walks of life” were flooding the streets in order to quell the coup.
“Whenever throughout history Turkey wanted to make important steps, it was confronted with coups, economic and political pressure in order to force this country to divert from its path,” Erdogan stated.
