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Turkish politics

“Turkey locks up dissidents” (November 12th) seriously understates the extent of the problem Turkey faces from the Gulenist terror organisation, FETO. This has been a recurring theme in European media, which perhaps also reflects why Turkey’s NATO allies were so slow to show their support for us during this year’s attempted coup.

Investigators have demonstrated that FETO’s political objective is to destabilise the Turkish republic and that it possesses the command structure, capacity and means to carry this out. Over the past 35 years it has established a network that has penetrated Turkish state institutions and civil society, by fair means and foul: indoctrinating recruits, stealing selection-exam papers for the civil service and armed forces, conspiring to stitch up key appointments, even framing their opponents with false evidence in court, such as in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases.

The malign reach and agenda of the organisation is common knowledge in Turkey; witness the brave and decisive opposition to the coup by Turkey’s citizens, by the parliament and all state institutions. Yet this is systematically overlooked by Western observers. Understanding how we feel about the Gulenist threat is vital for our future relations.

NUMAN KURTULMUS
Deputy prime minister of Turkey
Ankara

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