First CHP report: AKP-FETO brotherhood

Nothing has sparked more debate following the 15 July bloody coup attempt than FETO’s political leg. Facing the facts, we all know who the political leg is!

 We all jointly witnessed how those who walked together along this “parallel road” supported the Gülen brotherhood, how they nurtured it and how the state was surrendered into those dirty hands.

 While we have all witnessed this, a “political leg” argument has suddenly flared up between the AKP and CHP over the past two weeks. CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had harsh words for President Tayyip Erdoğan who at the same time is AKP General Chair: “FETO’s number one political leg is the individual who occupies the Presidency!”

 Erdoğan announced that he is suing Kılıçdaroğlu for 250,00 lira in damages for these harsh words. The major item of data in the CHP’s hands in this affair that has come before the judiciary are its reports into the 16-17 year relationship between the ruling AKP party and the Gülen brotherhood. The said reports, which were compiled under the coordination of Yasemin Öney Cankurtaran, form a documentary showing, “You were all there.”

 Yes, a full three reports.

 FETO’S BIRTHDATE AS FAR AS THE AKP IS CONCERNED.

 TWO HALVES OF ONE APPLE: AKP AND FETO.

 THE AKP DID NOT BREAK WITH FETO AFTER 15 JULY, EITHER!

 I will summarise important sections of the three reports in my serialised article. I will refer to one report each day and bring the most crucial parts back to the attention of our readers and Turkish public opinion. It is an inescapable fact that we are a forgetful society! The succinct words that leave a footnote in history and the reports, which must not be left forgotten on the dusty shelves of the archives, that you are about to read in succession will once more drive home to us like a slap in the face the relationship between those in the AKP who govern the ruling party and the Gülen brotherhood, the major force behind the 15 July bloody coup attempt.

 Really! We ask once more: Who was the one to be deceived?

 The most crucial point over which Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu are incapable of reaching agreement on FETO is the date on which the fight against FETO should have been started: This is 2004 for the CHP and 2013 for the AKP.

 BIRTHDATE MISIDENTIFIED BY NINE YEARS

 Date: 28 November 2013

 The headline news in Taraf newspaper is, “The decision to put an end to Gülen was taken at the National Security Council in 2004.”

 It is precisely with regard to “FETO’s birthdate as far as the AKP are concerned” that the greatest divergence of views between Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan sets out. However much President Erdoğan points to 17-25 December as the birthdate, the CHP contends that the “birthdate” was virtually a full nine years before 17-25 December.

 The CHP’s theses

 The CHP’s first report has precisely the following to say about the debate over the birthdate: If a “birthdate” needs to be identified in political and legal terms as to when, with regard to the AKP governments that have been in power since November 2002, they officially became aware of the Fetullahist Terrorist Organisation (FETO) threat, the correct approach will be to adopt the National Security Council meetings of 24 June 2004 and 25 August 2004 and National Security Council Resolution number 481 as the beginning. At the National Security Council meetings of 24 June 2004, the item of, “Nurist Activities in Turkey and Fethullah Gülen” was included on the agenda, and presentations were made by both the National Intelligence Agency Undersecretariat and the Chief of the General Staff’s Office into the threat relating to the Gülen Group’s structure and its domestic and foreign activities. Resolutions were passed and signed by all council members for the Gülen Group’s activities to be monitored and stamped out, and this entered the records as “National Security Council Resolution number 481” at the 25 August 2004 National Security Council meeting. An important point included in National Security Council Resolution number 481 was the request for the withdrawal of circulars number 3846 and 3847 sent on 16 April 2003 signed by Foreign Minister at the time Abdullah Gül to embassies calling for assistance to be given to the Gülen schools and National View abroad. However, just as these circulars were not withdrawn (until 20 May 2014), they were listed among acts in the indictment that the Court of Cassation Republic Chief Prosecution compiled seeking the closure of the AKP on the grounds that it “had become the focus of anti-secular acts.” Following the inclusion of the National Security Council Resolution of 25 August 2004 in Taraf newspaper on 28 November 2013, AKP officials endeavoured to account for this by saying: “It was brought onto the National Security Council’s agenda by President at the time, Sezer, and the government was not involved, but it deemed the resolution to be void and did not implement it,” as did the pro-regime media by saying “The government hollowed out the resolution and did not implement it; as National Security Council resolutions are advisory, it was not legally obliged to implement it, either.” There is a need at this point to inquire why those who criticised Erbakan for signing the 28 February resolutions did not resist National Security Council Resolution number 481 and signed a resolution they did not propose to implement. With there being seven civilian members from the AKP Government as against the five military officials who signed the 2004 National Security Council Resolution, it is obvious that this resolution would not have passed had they opposed. Following the 15 July 2016 coup attempt, President Erdoğan proclaimed 17-25 December 2013 to be FETO/PDY’s “birthdate”. If 17-25 December is to be a birthdate, it can only be the “birthdate of the breakdown of the AKP-FETO crime partnership.” As such, National Security Council Resolution number 481 is a document that testifies to the AKP Government being “politically and legally responsible” for paving the way for the process that led to the 15 July 2016 coup attempt with its confessions that they deemed it to be void and did not implement it, and its actions that consciously granted permission and approval to FETO’s strategic formation within the state over its fourteen years in power. In fact, the comment that Chief of the General Staff at the time, Hilmi Özkök, made to the Parliamentary Coup Commission, “We cautioned the government about FETO in 2004. However, we saw that not a great deal was done” serves to confirm this. These points, at the same time, demonstrate that it is not correct for the President and Prime Minister to refer to the 17-25 December 2013 Bribery and Corruption Investigations as the “birthdate” and state, “We were deceived by FETO.”

 Crucial question in the report

 The CHP, attempting in the report to put an end to debate over the birthdate using the state’s official documents, invites an answer to the following question: “Had the 2004 National Security Council Resolution been turned into a Cabinet Resolution and been implemented decisively, would FETO have attained the power to stage the 15 July attempted coup?”

 FROM THE REPORT: Gülen interpretation from Erdoğan: A different road going to the same destination.

 “Another important point which must be dwelled on is President Erdoğan’s confession that they had a ‘unity of goal’ in the speech he made at the Religious Council on 3 August 2016 in resorting to the description, ‘This structure, which we saw as being one of the different roads going to the same destination’ with reference to FETO/PDY. Erdoğan, who called on Gülen to return to Turkey saying, ‘Let this longing finally end’ at the Turkish Language Olympics at which he participated as recently as 15 June 2012 and who made efforts to reach an understanding with Gülen even one day after 17 December 2013, proclaimed 17-25 December to be FETO/PDY’s ‘birthdate’ following the 15 July 2016 coup attempt.”

 “In the comment that Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, in turn, made on 23 October 2016, he remarked, ‘A former General Chief of Staff (Hilmi Özkök) comes out and says, “We made a warning in 2004.” What did you warn about, brother? We look at the resolution and it says “The Nur brotherhood and Hizmet movement must be watched.” Since when have brotherhoods been terrorist organisations? The red line for us is the day on which their terrorist activities commence, and that is 17 December. As long as nobody takes up arms and kills people, they cannot be treated as terrorist organisations. This organisation’s arm wrestling with the state started on 17 December.’ Were we to highlight the contradictions in these statements by Prime Minister Yıldırım: The name ‘Fethullah Gülen Group’ appears directly in the 2004 National Security Council Resolution but Prime Minister Yıldırım tries to conceal this. He objects to the comment by General Chief of the Staff at the time, Özkök, ‘We cautioned the government in 2004.’ The documents, however, contradict the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, by saying, ‘This organisation’s arm wrestling with the state started on 17 December,’ is deciding that the decision as to whether a structure is a terrorist organisation is to be made, not with reference to security reports as to whether it is working against the state, but by referring to the state of its relations with the AKP. As to the remark, ‘As long as nobody takes up arms and kills people, they cannot be treated as terrorist organisations. The day on which its terrorist activity started was 17 December,’ it is unfortunately tragicomic. Neither 17 December nor 25 December were armed acts; nobody had guns in their hands. So, what was there? There were dollars emerging from shoe boxes, bribes going into chocolate boxes, a 700,000-lira watch, safes at home, money counting machines and billions of dollars that somehow defied efforts to get rid of them.”

 “Erdoğan’s pronouncements following 17-25 December that, ‘They became a state within the state’ and ‘What did they ask for that we did not give?’ however much they convey accusation and reproach, also amount to a confession of the support they gave until that time.”

 Erdoğan’s signature also appears on the 2004 resolution

 The resolution contained the following warnings:

 Alongside serving President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Prime Minister Erdoğan, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, Deputy Prime Minister Abdüllatif Şener, Justice Minister Cemil Çiçek, Minister of National Defence Vecdi Gönül and Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu signed the resolution that passed into the records as “National Security Council Resolution number 481” at the 25 August 2004 National Security Council meeting and was of an “advisory” nature. The resolution also bears the signatures of serving Chief of the General Staff, Hilmi Özkök, service commanders Özden Örnek, Aytaç Yalman and İbrahim Fırtına and Gendarmerie General Commander Şener Eruygur. Some of the significant points in National Security Council Resolution number 481 are as follow:

 The Gülen group’s domestic and foreign activities should be closely monitored through the intermediation of the Interior Ministry, Foreign Ministry, National Intelligence Agency Undersecretariat and other relevant bodies under the coordination of the Prime-Ministerial Implementation Monitoring and Coordination Board.

The Gülen group should be closely monitored through the intermediation of the state’s civil servants serving abroad and, if necessary, additional measures should be developed by the Foreign Ministry.

The activities of the private schools belonging to the Gülen group should be examined and monitored by the Interior Ministry and Ministry of National Education. Suspicious and illegal activities in the schools belonging to this group should be reported periodically to the Prime-Ministerial Implementation Monitoring and Coordination Board.

The Gülen group’s endeavours to obtain sympathisers and followers by means of “student houses” should be monitored carefully within the Interior Ministry. “Student houses” practices, which provide religious education using illegal means and are a system for procuring followers through a kind of instrumentalisation of religion, should be prevented.

Monitoring of donations that are made, illicit money movements and money-laundering practices must be brought about through the intermediation of the Finance Ministry-Financial Crimes Investigation Board.

Circulars number 3846 and 3847 that Abdullah Gül sent on 16 April 2003 in his capacity as Foreign Minister to embassies calling for assistance to be given to the Gülen schools and National View should be withdrawn.

Part Two: Why did Erdoğan send an envoy to Gülen?

Part Three: CHP’s FETO report: FETOist rectors being appointed

 http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/siyaset/955711/CHP_raporlarinda_1__AKP-FETO_kardesligi.html