In an event in Hamburg yesterday, panelists discussed how the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) disguised itself and carried out last year's deadly coup attempt in Turkey and the putsch bid's impact on Turkish-German relations.
The Daily Sabah Centre for Policy Studies and the Sabah Columnists Club of sister newspaper Sabah hosted the event where panelists, including Daily Sabah Editor-in-Chief Serdar Karagöz and the newspaper's ombudsman İbrahim Altay, spoke.
FETÖ, which is often branded with the more innocuous term the "Gülen Movement," especially by Western media outlets, promotes itself as a charity in a bid to engender sympathy abroad. Germany, which hosts a sizable Turkish community, is also home to the group's sympathizers and according to Turkish media outlets, fugitive members of the group wanted by Turkey.
Karagöz said in the panel that FETÖ was a complex structure and tapped on the Turkish public's sympathy for charities working for education and religious sensitivities with its interfaith dialogue project and used those to disguise its real motives. "Under this disguise is a sprawling criminal empire," Karagöz said. He explained how the group infiltrated the bureaucracy and judiciary to overthrow the state, adding that the post-coup process in Turkey was "a move by the state to rehabilitate and reorganize itself" after infiltrators of the terrorist group were dismissed from their posts, detained or arrested. "The state of emergency declared after the coup attempt is an instrument for this process," he said, pointing out how thousands of East German civil servants were dismissed from their jobs after the unification of East and West Germany. The Daily Sabah Centre for Policy Studies delivered the German edition of "Evidence" book prepared by the think tank to panel's audience who comprised of German media members. The center's representative, Şeyma Eraz, who moderated the panel, said the evidence clearly showed the FETÖ network was behind the coup attempt and this was also a commonly shared view by the Turkish public. The book consists of official evidence collected by investigators after the putsch attempt, from security footage and photos to testimonies by military officers involved in the attempt who confessed their links to the group.
Mehmet Akarca, head of Turkey's state-run Directorate of Press and Information, said in the panel that Turkey and Germany maintained good relations and he believed that Germany - a country hosting refugees - especially appreciated Turkey's "sacrifice" for the millions of refugees. "We lost our 250 citizens in the coup attempt and managed to stop it thanks to President Erdoğan's determination and people mobilizing against the coup attempt," he said. Associate Professor Fahrettin Altun, a Daily Sabah columnist, explained how FETÖ evolved and how it moved to seize power last year.
Fatih Zingal, from the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD), criticized Germany's approach to the matter and said Germany "suddenly" started portraying Gülenists as victims of the coup attempt. Professor Kerem Alkin, a Daily Sabah columnist, said FETÖ should be recognized internationally as a terrorist organization. "Our friends in the West should not consider what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says about FETÖ is his personal opinion. His criticism of the group is the common view of the Turkish public," he said.CONTRIBUTED BY MESUT HASTÜRK
