Do not let the title confuse you. “Since it’s Ramadan,” I won’t presume to issue religious decrees. I know my place and have a principle of not writing or speaking on topics I am not knowledgeable about, expert in, or have not acquired information or documentation on.
Our topic involves President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and, primarily, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, along with other leading figures of the regime, focusing on the contradictions between their words and actions. Specifically, we will examine their actions and statements regarding the Hizmet Movement and Fethullah Gülen.
“Some might wonder how this topic came up. Let me explain…
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had a lengthy interview with Hande Fırat on CNNTurk the other night. Essentially, he presented topics from his agenda, while ‘journalist’ Hande Fırat listened, without asking the necessary questions. I won’t delve into a discussion on journalism, as it has long been a lost cause in Turkey.
Before getting into the content, it’s worth mentioning that Hakan Fidan’s decision to give a 1.5-hour interview at this time serves two purposes: one is to polish his own career, and the other is to send a message of solidarity in case things go awry.
Fidan spent a lot of time boasting about his ‘achievements’.
Given his lack of a well-prepared, journalism-educated interlocutor, he was quite comfortable. Besides, Hande Fırat and CNNTürk aren’t exactly outsiders. They worked closely together during the orchestration of the July 15 coup attempt. There are witnesses to dinners between Hande Fırat and Nuh Yılmaz, then media advisor to the National Intelligence Organization (MÄ°T).
Fidan said a lot, but I will specifically focus on his comments about the ‘bugs’ allegedly found in the Prime Minister’s office and the ‘February 7 MÄ°T crisis’.
First off, let me say that Fidan, both in terms of his training and character, does not speak frivolously. Therefore, there must be a reason and necessity for him to bring up the topics of February 7 and ‘bugs’ out of the blue.
In summary, he talked about seeing the state engulfed by ‘FETÖ’ like poison ivy upon his arrival at MÄ°T, discussing with then Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry Efkan Ala what needed to be done against this ‘threat’, finding bugs in ErdoÄŸan’s residence on December 28, 2011, planted by ‘FETÖ’, but not starting the fight right away, waiting for the right conditions to mature, and successfully navigating the process under ErdoÄŸan’s effective leadership.
I won’t go into detail about how absurd the ‘bug story’ allegedly found in the Prime Minister’s office is. I’ve thoroughly explained it with evidence in a previous broadcast.
The situation is essentially like the wolf eating the lamb. ErdoÄŸan and his allies decided to devour the Community, paving their way with the “We found bugs!” narrative. Admittedly, they were very successful in evil. Ultimately, the lie of “bugs were placed in the Prime Minister’s office!” did a lot of work, effectively demonizing the Community along with other lies.
However, all allegations were dismissed in court, and the accused police officers were acquitted, but nobody cared. The goal had been achieved, and there was no need to repeat that lie. The full details of the bug story, with evidence, are available in the broadcast I linked above.
I even revealed in court documents that the bugs were imported by Ekim Alptekin, a businessman close to ErdoÄŸan, and bought by a partner of Reza Zarrab, indicating that the bugs claimed to be found were from this series. Essentially, the ErdoÄŸan regime closed the case and moved on to prevent the tracking of the bugs.
But my main point is elsewhere.
Hakan Fidan essentially says, “We decided to eliminate the Community, but we didn’t start the war right away. We needed to wait for the right conditions. When the time came, we pressed the button and achieved our goal after July 15!”
Let’s examine the essence of these words.
First and foremost, the phrase ‘waiting for the right conditions’ has a bad reputation in our history, reminiscent of Kenan Evren’s words before the September 12 coup. Moreover, ‘creating the conditions’ is essentially an admission of ‘setting a trap’. Hakan Fidan is effectively saying, “We set a trap for the Community!”
The historical context for Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, Fidan, and Ala’s ‘decision to eliminate the Community and start preparations’ dates back to 2010. This is known from statements by ErdoÄŸan and his speechwriter Aydın Ãœnal, with Fidan’s remarks pointing to 2011. All these
occurred behind closed doors. But what was happening in public view?
In public, ErdoÄŸan and AKP officials were praising the Community, attending its institutions and programs en masse. The most famous of these was the closing ceremony of the Turkish Language Olympics in June 2012. Attending the event at the Istanbul Olympic Stadium, ErdoÄŸan made his historic appeal to Fethullah Gülen, saying, “Let this longing end!”
During the same period, ErdoÄŸan was sending messages to Gülen and even calling him. On the one hand, Hakan Fidan was recruiting individuals known to be from the Community into MÄ°T, placing them in visible positions as if to signal, “My relationship with the Community is good.”
Moreover, Fidan visited Pennsylvania to meet Gülen twice during that period. For instance, in May 2013, Erdoğan made an official visit to the US and then split from the delegation to meet with Gülen in Pennsylvania. While Erdoğan and AKP officials were secretly forging alliances and planning traps against the Community, they were publicly spreading messages of friendship, brotherhood, and love.
This was done consciously and coolly.
For example, these lines belong to ErdoÄŸan’s speechwriter and AKP Ankara MP Aydın Ãœnal: “What was the meaning behind the ‘let this longing end’ appeal at the 2012 Turkish Language Olympics? Do not be fooled by the tens of thousands of fools cheering this call in the stands… Those who saw the conflict starting in 2010 know that this appeal carried not a shred of affection, that it cornered Fethullah Gülen quite badly, and intensified the conflict, recognizing this appeal as a maneuver by a political genius.”
Aydın Ãœnal describes his boss ErdoÄŸan’s move as a “maneuver by a political genius,” but the literature’s equivalent for such behavior is “hypocrisy.” Looking back, we realize that it wasn’t just ErdoÄŸan who was hypocritical. Hakan Fidan and Efkan Ala were making plans to eliminate the Community while also trying to appear extra close to it.
They visited Hizmet institutions, took in individuals known to be from the Community into their circles. As the Ankara representative for Today’s Newspaper at the time, Fidan didn’t act like an ‘enemy’. There were many occasions he visited the newspaper for dinner or hosted us in his office.
These meetings were ‘off the record’, but I took notes afterward. Looking back at those notes, it’s clear they played their roles well. It turns out that the men we prayed with side by side behind closed doors were giving orders to “cut off their heads!”
It’s also worth mentioning BeÅŸir Atalay, the Interior Minister at the time. While publicly sending positive messages and inviting people known to be from the Community to his home for advice, he was also provoking ErdoÄŸan against the Community.
In summary, countless examples can be listed.
While smiling at the Community’s face and frequently visiting Pennsylvania and Community institutions in groups; behind the scenes, they were preparing for genocide. The fact that those responsible coolly orchestrated the biggest trap in the history of the Republic on July 15 no longer surprises us.
They played their cards well and achieved their ancient goal with the July 15 coup plot. As Hakan Fidan stated on CNNTürk, the Community is now gone. The country is drowning in despair, but does it matter?
Despite AKP officials and ErdoÄŸan’s close team defining their duplicitous politics against the Community as a “maneuver by a political genius,” there’s only one term for their actions in the literature: political hypocrisy.
