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Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gulen, an enemy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was accused of having masterminded the military coup in Turkey in 2016, died in exile in the United States at the age of 83, the Gulen’s movement and the Turkish government stated on Monday.
Gulen came to the USA in 1999 and was a friend of Erdogan, the Turkish president, although the two are now bitter rivals.
“According to our sources, the leader of the FETO organization is dead,” Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister said in a press briefing in Ankara using Turkiye’s name for Gulen’s Hizmet movement.
Türkiye’s TRT public television reported the death of the preacher, who had been living in Pennsylvania for 27 years and had his Turkish citizenship withdrawn in 2017, in the hospital at night.
In a message on X Gulen via his banned website Herkul in Turkiye said he died on ‘October 20’ vowing to write more about the funeral.
Gulen relocated to Pennsylvania in 1999 on the pretext of poor health, while from there he controlled the headquarters of Hizmet that had a fairly large network of supposedly secular schools around the globe by 2012.
In 2013, he had a severe falling out with Erdogan and in 2016 the Turkish despot accused him of planning to overthrow him, labeling it the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) or Hizmet.
On July 15, 2016, at least 250 people died during an attempted military coup by a faction of Turkiye’s armed forces with tanks and warplanes aimed at the seat of government; Erdogan accused Gulen of having supporters in the military involved in the coup attempt.
“This organization has become a threat not seen in the history of the nation,” said Fidan and accused them of being used as a foreign weapon against their own country.
Even after Gulen’s death, Turkiye would carry on ‘the struggle against this organization which is a security threat to the country,’ Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc posted on X.
Ally turned enemy
Gulen supported Erdogan when the latter became prime minister in the early twenty-first century, but the two fell out in 2010.
Three years later, Gulen was banned when a corruption scandal hit the premier’s inner circle.
Erdogan then blamed Goolen and later started accusing him of terror links while Goolen and his movement continued to assert they were only a chain of charity and business companies.
The situation shifted for the worse after the coup, the authorities prosecuted more than 700,000 people and condemned some 3000 Gulen affiliates for life under terrorism charges to the coup.
Bayram Balci, a researcher at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences-Po), told AFP that the demise of the once popular preacher would not affect Turkiye.
“Before the split with Erdogan in 2010 and particularly after the failed coup in 2016, Goolen’s image has been rather negative.” “Contrary to this he is not esteemed by many people,” he told AFP.
Ankara would not allow Gulen’s body to be repatriated for burial, and he is likely to be buried in his home in Pennsylvania, said.
Hizmet is “no longer the big movement that it once was” as it has significantly lost its power and its numerous schools are mainly functioning in Germany, the US, Nigeria, and South Africa.
To date, Turkiye can still arrest the Gulen sympathizers and continue to put pressure on governments of those countries where the Gulen movement is operational.
Turkish security sources told the private NTV broadcaster that only a few people would probably come to the funeral and that most likely Gulen would be buried in the United States in an undisclosed place.
Pak-Turk schools
Since 2019 officially all schools and universities related to Pakistan previously affiliated with the Gulen’s organisation were taken under the management of Turkiye’s Maarif Foundation.
The government handed over 28 Pak- Turk Schools in Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore to the foundation.
The government has been ordered by the Supreme Court to classify Gulen’s organization as a terrorist group and turn schools into the Maarif Foundation.
Türkiye set up the Maarif Foundation in 2016, following a failed coup. It was assigned the responsibility of managing taken over the administrative operations of overseas schools affiliated with Gulen’s organization. It also opens up schools and educational centers across the globe.
Still, the students of Pak-Turk schools and their parents demonstrated against the government for sending their teachers to Turkiye and further schools to the foundation.