SAYLORSBURG, Pennsylvania — U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers Turkey blames for a failed coup, said on Saturday the attempted overthrow may have been staged, and he urged the Turkish people not to view military intervention in a positive light.
“There is a slight chance, there is a possibility that it could be a staged coup,” Gulen told reporters through a translator in Pennsylvania, where he resides. “It could be meant for court accusations and associations.”
Gulen said democracy cannot be achieved through military action. He criticized the President Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
“It appears that they have no tolerance for any movement, any group, any organization that is not under their total control,” he said.
The Gulen movement denied involvement in the coup, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday was quoted as saying the United States would support investigations to determine who instigated the attempted coup and where its support originates. He said he anticipates questions will be raised about Gulen.
Although Gulen lives on a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, he has maintained influence in Turkey through followers in the judiciary and police. Turkish media reported Saturday that 2,745 judges had been removed because of suspicions they have links to the Gulen movement.
“Fethullah Gulen is the leader of a terrorist organization,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said of the exiled Muslim cleric. Gulen has been one of the chief political opponents to Erdogan.
“We have requested his extradition from the United States. Especially after what happened yesterday, I don’t believe any country would support him. Whichever country supports him isn’t a friend of Turkey. It is practically at war with Turkey,” Yildirim said.
Across the country the death toll included 161 mostly civilians and police officers, and 104 coup supporters, an official said, adding that a lawmaker died when the parliament was attacked by a helicopter.
The coup attempt left grave questions about Turkey’s long-term stability and its role in the fight against Islamic State extremists in neighboring Syria.
Erdogan said Saturday that the military faction responsible for the uprising “will pay a heavy price for their treason.”
Gulen at a glance
Gulen, who is in his 70s, is revered by supporters as a moderate advocate of interfaith dialogue, and his group condemned the takeover bid. To Erdogan and Turkey’s ruling party, he’s hellbent on undermining the Turkish government. As major political parties and some senior army officials distance themselves from the short-lived uprising that killed 200 people, authorities are purging the army and judiciary of alleged Gulen sympathizers.
Q: Who is Gulen?
A: Gulen won a following while employed as an imam, or preacher, by the Turkish state. He persuaded businessmen to set up dormitories for needy students, according to a 2008 biography by journalist Faruk Mercan. Those later turned into schools that form a key part of his organization, called Hizmet or “the service,” helping to train teachers and volunteers for colleges run by the group around the world, according to the book.
Gulen left Turkey in 1999 after tapes that showed him telling followers to infiltrate government institutions were broadcast on television. A year later, he was charged with forming a terrorist group to undermine the secular state. He was acquitted by the top appeals court in 2008. Gulen hasn’t set foot in his homeland this millennium and is thought to be in poor health, suffering from diabetes. Erdogan has been pressing heads of state to shut down Gulen schools overseas.
Q: Weren’t Gulen and Erdogan once friends?
A: Gulen was once an ally in Erdogan’s efforts to give Islam a greater role in Turkish public life and curb the power of the secular army. His followers were heavily represented in the police and justice systems. But tensions developed over the years and they became sworn enemies in 2013, when the government charged him of orchestrating a corruption probe targeting Erdogan’s family, Cabinet ministers and leading businessmen. The graft allegations were eventually thrown out when the government dismissed police and prosecutors working on the case.
Their bitter feud has only escalated since then. The Turkish government in April seized control of the country’s best-selling newspaper Zaman, which had links to Gulen and had become a fierce opponent of Erdogan’s rule, especially as he moved to concentrate power in an executive presidency. In 2015, a court in Istanbul ordered a management takeover at companies owned by Kaynak Holding on suspicion it aided the cleric’s followers.
Isobel Finkel of Bloomberg, Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post, Roy Gutman and Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times, and Reuters contributed to this report.