Gülen planned to return to Turkey like Khomeini: Turkish justice minister

Deniz Zeyrek – ANKARA

U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is accused by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of masterminding the failed July 15 coup attempt, would have returned to Turkey as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did to Iran if the putsch had been successful, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has said. 

“He would have come back like Khomeini and they would have formed their own order. It would have been a totally different Turkey. I wouldn’t even want to imagine a Turkey in which they were successful,” Bozdağ told daily Hürriyet on July 28, adding that he was faced with objections when he previously drew comparisons with Khomeini.

“They are saying, ‘We are the state.’ Their ambitions are very clear. When I said, ‘Fethullah Gülen will return like Khomeini,’ they opposed me,” he said. 

Arguing that the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) accepts everything as legitimate in attempting to reach their goals, Bozdağ said, “One cannot find such a well-hidden terrorist organization anywhere in the world.”

“However, all of them will come to light. The testimonies are not over yet. They are being taken rapidly. The camera, phone and digital communications records, surveillance cameras and phone messages haven’t been completely analyzed yet. Maybe additional testimony will be taken depending on the new testimony. Then plenty of stuff will come to light,” he said. 

According to politicians and officials conducting the investigation, Gülenists planned to construct a “new state.”  

Former Deputy Prime Minister and AKP deputy Yalçın Akdoğan said a “regime of captivity” would have been formed if the coup had been successful.

“If this had been a classical coup, they would maybe have hanged or jailed us. However, our children and future generations would live their lives in Turkey. If this coup had been successful, not only would they have hanged us, but we would also lose the future generations. A regime of captivity would have been formed and a structure that would make Turkey only a satellite country with no one different being able to breathe would have emerged,” Akdoğan told daily Hürriyet.

“They want to destroy everything. They want to topple the state, not the government, and form their hegemony and regime of captivity. It’s their calculation. They didn’t plan to appoint a prime minister and open the parliament again. They aimed to abolish the system completely,” he said.