Date posted: October 8, 2016
Nowadays, most articles about Turkey, Erdogan and Gulen have a default sentence: “Erdogan and Gulen were former allies”. It is said and written so many times that eventually became a fact. However, the reality is not that simple.
This 2 minute-video illustrates Gulen-Erdogan history.
Tags: Fethullah Gulen | Hizmet (Gulen) movement | Hizmet and politics | Turkey |

Ten out of 33 people who were detained in the western Turkish province of Manisa in early July have been arrested for providing aid to the families of alleged Gülen movement followers.

When Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine asked readers to vote for the world’s top public intellectual, one man won in a landslide: Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, an inspirational leader to millions of followers around the world and persona non grata to many in his native Turkey, where some consider him a threat to the country’s […]

Local governments working with volunteers from religious groups and private business in Virginia delivered more than 72 tons of coats and blankets this winter to Syrian refugees in Turkey. The Northern Virginia Regional Commission, made up of 14 local governments in the Washington, DC suburbs, has been coordinating the coat and blanket drive for each of the last three winters.

The official announcement did not provide any details about the visit, but Nazarbayev is expected to smooth over any disagreements between the two Turkic countries following the failed coup. The Kazakh-Turkish schools employ 1,124 teachers, of whom 1,030 are Kazakh citizens (91.7%) and 94 are Turkish citizens (8.3%).” Kazakhstan also has the Suleyman Demirel University, opened in Almaty in 1996.

The Turkish population already is strongly polarized on the AKP regime. A Turkey under a dictatorial regime, providing haven to violent radicals and pushing its Kurdish citizens into desperation, would be a nightmare for Middle East security. I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.

It seems that US President Barack Obama and the rest of the world have not taken the Turkish president seriously on this matter. The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), the Swiss Dialogue Institute and the University of Geneva jointly organized a peace summit titled “Mobilizing Civil Society for Building Peace” at the UN Center in Geneva. The event attracted a great deal of attention, as evidenced by the participation of renowned individuals, including Hassan al-Benna’s grandson Tariq Ramadan; Ela Gandhi, the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, whose statue stands in the garden of the UN Center; and Gunnar Johan Stalsett, from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. A total of 800 renowned figures from 50 countries participated in this gathering.
