Former deputy Uras: Erdoğan struck deal with Ergenekon against Gülen movement

Ufuk Uras. (Photo: Cihan)
Ufuk Uras. (Photo: Cihan)


Date posted: December 23, 2015

A former member of Parliament, academic Ufuk Uras claimed during an interview with a daily on Monday that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had made a deal with the leaders of the Ergenekon clandestine organization during his fight against the faith-based Gülen movement after the Dec. 17 and 25 graft investigations became public at the end of 2013.

Speaking to the Yeni Asya daily, Uras, who was elected to Parliament as an independent in July 2007 and led the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), underlined that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had received the support of civil society, including the Gülen movement, popularly known as the Hizmet movement, during its fight against military tutelage in Turkish politics after 2002.

According to Uras, Erdoğan made a deal with Ergenekon and the militarist block in Turkey to finish off the Gülen movement despite the fact that it was his government that backed the Ergenekon trials.

Erdoğan accuses the movement of being behind the corruption scandal that implicated him and senior members of his government in December 2013, but has failed to show any concrete evidence to support his claims. The movement strongly rejects the accusations.

Ergenekon is a clandestine network made up of former and active military officers, journalists, academics, politicians and mafia leaders whose members were convicted by a court in August 2013 for attempting to overthrow the AK Party government.

While nearly 300 defendants in the Ergenekon case, a former chief of General Staff and military force commanders were sentenced to life without parole and handed down harsh sentences, the Constitutional Court ruled in June 2014 that a lower court had violated the right of 236 suspects in the Balyoz case to defend themselves and ordered a retrial. After the retrials, all of the defendants were released from jail and acquitted by the courts.

Veteran politician Uras claimed that several former military officers who took part in coup plots targeting Erdoğan’s governments were also acquitted as part of the compromise against the Gülen movement. “The Ergenekon’s coup plots, including Balyoz, were real. We used to hear from our sources about these plots at the beginning of the 2000s,” Uras said.

According to Uras, Erdoğan and his close associates paved the way for the retrial of the Ergenekon convicts after they claimed the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials were a “conspiracy” against the military prepared by sympathizers of the Gülen movement within the judiciary.

Then-Prime Minister Erdoğan’s chief adviser Yalçın Akdoğan wrote an op-ed piece in the Yeni Şafak daily in December 2014 claiming that the convicted officers had been framed by a group within the judiciary. He alleged that the same group has also orchestrated the sweeping corruption investigation targeting the government.

Source: Today's Zaman , December 22, 2015


Related News

Civic engagement, success and the Gülen movement

MUHAMMED ÇETİN The recent extraordinary interest in activities by and related to the Gülen movement leads many to think about civic engagement and its efficacy and success. Civic engagement is extremely vital for improving and enhancing conditions in any contemporary democracy. It means promoting the quality of life in a community through both political and […]

Liberal Turkish Journalists Champion Freedom of Expression, to a Degree

It’s precisely opposition journalists who have been criticized by colleagues who until recently worked for the newspapers of U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen. These colleagues accuse the opposition journalists of betraying freedom of expression. One of them is Sevgi Akarcesme who was editor-in-chief of the Turkish English-language daily Today’s Zaman. There is a great deal of truth in Akarcesme’s claims. But who today would dare defend journalists identified with Gulen?

Turkey, ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ and ‘Titanic’

Questions to challenge the primary and unjustified premise: What judicial (or other) process determined that these corruption investigations were a coup attempt against the government? What proof or evidence do you have to support this most serious claim? What disciplinary process did you undertake to determine that the people that were purged were members and culprits of this ‘coup’? In the absence of evidence and disciplinary process how did you determine these people’s association with Hizmet? When is government corruption not a judicial coup? How can you have the right to unilaterally determine the intent and purpose of these ongoing judicial investigations when your government is implicated in them? If your government can purge over 7,000 police officers (and thereby affect and prevent these investigations) without evidence, due process or disciplinary procedure, do you not set a precedent for every future potentially corrupt government to follow?

Gülen Movement: An Alternative to Fundamentalism

Helen Rose Ebaugh, an American professor specializing in the sociology of religion, sees the movement founded by the controversial Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen as both an opportunity for the West and a serious alternative to religious extremism.

Academics: Hizmet a movement, not a gang; Gülen builds ties

The Hizmet movement led by US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen is not a gang but a movement, academics have said in reaction to a smear campaign led by the Turkish government against the movement and its representatives.

Who is escalating tensions?

Whenever someone questions the government’s performance or flaws in Turkey, the Gülen movement is put under the spotlight. And whenever there is a mass protest, the Gezi figures and Alevis are accused of being behind it.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Very bad things are happening in Turkey

Turkey sees unprecedented pressure on media since Dec. 14 operation

Turkish Cultural Center’s Meat Drive in New York

Pro-gov’t daily: Turkey, Russia could conduct joint operation to abduct Gülen

Panel highlights need for new global economic order

Abant Platform convenes to discuss problems of Turkish education system

‘PM conducting psychological warfare [against Hizmet movement] to cover graft claims’

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News