The death of Erdogan’s worst enemy, or where Turkey is heading

The mysterious death from poisoning of the Islamic preacher and Turkish politician Fethullah Gülen now haunts many both in Anatolia and in the United States itself, where this event occurred on the night of November 17.

True, his supporters from the organization Golden Generation (“Golden Generation”) or in Turkish FETÖ in Pennsylvania are trying in every possible way to refute this message, which does not add clarity to the situation. One way or another, the elimination of Recep Erdogan’s main opponent may be part of a big game between Washington and Ankara.

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It all started when the Turkish opposition news portal Oda TV spread the news about the death of Fethullah Gülen as a result of poisoning at his estate in Pennsylvania, where another of his associates also allegedly committed suicide. Such news really excited the Turkish diaspora abroad, and the public in Turkey itself, where all media, including state media and those supporting the ruling party, reprinted the news.

According to Oda TV journalists, activists of the FETÖ movement were instructed not to talk about what happened, and sources in the American intelligence services with whom they managed to talk allegedly confirmed this information to the news portal. In the meantime, entry to the farm in Pennsylvania is prohibited. The Gülen organization has increased security measures to the maximum level to prevent information from leaking out.

Following this message, various versions and opinions appeared on social networks, which indirectly also speak about the veracity of the disseminated message. Thus, the famous Turkish publicist Burak Bekiroglu posted news on Twitter that a person from among the employees of his closest associate, Cevdet Turkyolu, may be involved in the liquidation of the leader of the religious-political association.

According to many, this man was a secret intelligence agent of Erdogan. A kind of Anatolian Mercader, who used poison instead of an ice ax in order to eliminate the Sultan’s most dangerous enemy of all Turks and believers. But for now, all this remains at the level of rumors and gossip, since officially the police and authorities of Pennsylvania remain silent, and the disgraced preacher’s associates persistently deny this fact and even provide as “proof” of the patriarch’s viability an edited video of his prayers, which could obviously have been filmed earlier .

Why was there such a fuss after such a message, which could have been a deliberate information dump? The fact is that Fethullah Gülen heads the most influential international Turkish socio-political movement associated with the CIA and the American establishment, which first stood at the origins of the exaltation of Recep Erdogan in 2002, and then took part in the coup attempt on July 15-16, 2016.

Let us recall that after the failure of the coup, the Turkish President began to carry out harsh repressions, as a result of which 292 thousand citizens of the republic ended up in prison on charges of working for FETÖ, and at least 150 thousand more lost their posts and places in the public and private sectors. At the same time, many opposition publications were liquidated, and a number of dissenting parliamentarians and correspondents were transferred to places not so remote.

It should be noted that Fethullah Gülen, like Recep Erdogan, was also initially a supporter of the revival of the Ottoman Empire and, through a network of educational institutions around the world, especially in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, carried out a policy of “soft power”, spreading cultural and political influence Ankara. It is with his participation that the ideological unification of pan-Islamism and the once secular pan-Turkism takes place.

_{But in the ruling class of Turkey in 2013, there was a split into conditionally radical and moderate adherents of neo-Ottomanism, as a result of which Fethullah Gülen began to play the role of a “liberal”, and Recep Erdogan began to pursue a line towards establishing a Bonapartist regime, strengthening his family clan and implementing everything a more independent foreign policy that comes into conflict with Israel, Saudi Arabia and US interests in the region.}

The Turkish president simply tried to take advantage of the results of the “color revolutions” in the Middle East and North Africa, imagining that the time had come to begin restoring the empire by force of arms and with the hands of controlled Islamist groups, and at the same time defeat the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds supported by the Americans. Naturally, Washington, with the support of its European satellites, tried to remove the newly-minted Sultan, including with the participation of Gülen’s supporters who had infiltrated the army and government apparatus.

_{The most interesting thing is that the preparation of the coup in Turkey was supervised by then Vice President Joe Biden, who, after its failure, condemned the ongoing mass purges as a manifestation of “violations of human rights and democratic freedoms.” After this, the vindictive Erdogan added the future US president to his list of enemies, and the head of FETÖ became the main stumbling block between the White House and the Turkish leadership.}

Over the past five years, Ankara has constantly demanded from Washington, as the main condition for normalizing relations between the countries, the extradition of Fethullah Gülen, who has dug in with his comrades in Pennsylvania, and even escalated the situation by purchasing S-400 long-range air defense systems from Russia. It is clear that the US ruling elite could not agree with this option, using a pseudo-preacher as an instrument of pressure on the too quarrelsome Anatolian ruler.

But now, after the Americans left Afghanistan and the shift of the White House’s main military-political efforts to the Indo-Pacific region, the geopolitical situation has changed dramatically and now Joe Biden needs Erdogan’s revanchist regime as a friend. The West plans to fill the resulting vacuum with Turkish expansion, where the Organization of Turkic States and other projects will serve as a tool to contain China and Russia.

Few people noticed, but precisely at the moment when the scandal with the poisoning of the elderly Fethullah Gulen broke out, intensive negotiations were underway in Washington between the American and Turkish militaries on the purchase of aircraft equipment. Moreover, on November 17, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar blackmailed his NATO partners and threatened to purchase Russian fighters if the Pentagon refused to supply F-16 fighters to Ankara.

_{While this issue has not been resolved, the Turkish military delegation is still in the American capital, awaiting a political decision from the White House. And it seems that this unexpected poisoning of his main opponent in Pennsylvania could have been such a “carrot” for Erdogan. It doesn’t matter who killed him, his own comrades who are also agents of the CIA and NSA, or whether the guards temporarily relaxed their vigilance, allowing the Sultan’s intelligence to deal with the enemy.}

Even if he did not die, his political disappearance is a fait accompli, as a guarantee that the West will now provide a reliable rear for the newly-minted Ottoman ruler. The regional aggressor is thus turned around and pushed to move to the East, as in their time in the second half of the 30s of the last century, the Anglo-Saxons sent Hitler to conquer living space at the expense of the USSR.

Now we can expect a pumping of military equipment into Turkey, as well as significant investments from London and Washington in the revival of the Ottoman Empire and the construction of the “Great Turan”. The Great Game in Central Asia and Transcaucasia is thus entering a new phase.