
John Kirby, spokesman of the US State Department, said “Secretary [Kerry] has raised concerns about some of the rhetoric coming out of Turkey with respect to American involvement or support, tacit or otherwise, for this unspeakable assassination yesterday because of the presence of Mr. Gülen here in the United States.”

The Jabhat Fatah al-Sham organization (formerly the al-Nusra Front) claimed to be responsible for Monday’s murder of Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov’s in Ankara. Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu had even told his US counterpart John Kerry that both Turkey and Russia “know” that the Gulen movement was behind the ambassador’s murder.

Now for the fourth time, Embrace Relief is organizing another campaign to assist Syrian refugees abroad, this time to Syrians in refugee camps in Iraq. We are asking our volunteers to bring new or gently used blankets and winter coats to one of the drop-off locations.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the tragic assassination of Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, who was speaking at an art gallery in Ankara,” said Eyup Sener, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Center New Hampshire. “We condemn in the strongest terms this heinous act of terror. No terrorist act can be justified, regardless of its perpetrators and their stated purposes.”

Issuing a press statement following the latest terrorist attack in Turkey on Saturday, Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen claimed that Turkey is being dragged into a civil war but underlined that sympathizers of the movement sometimes called after him would always remain peaceful no matter how they are treated.

Fethullah Gülen: I condemn, in the strongest terms, the cruel terrorist attack carried out beside the Istanbul Beşiktaş Football Stadium that cost the lives of 44 of Turkish citizens, the majority of whom are members of the security forces.

“Even if you get more civilian control, it’s not more democratic,” Lars Haugom, a Norwegian expert on Turkish army, said. “It seems to be about party control, with [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and the AKP seeking to strengthen their control of the military.” Ceren, a general’s daughter, fears there’s little left to stop the authoritarian Erdogan now. “No one can say no to him,” she said. “This is his kingdom now.”

In recent years, the movement has received more scrutiny, not least after its long-time alley, Turkish President Erdogan, publicly split with the group, accusing it of infiltrating state institutions and even outright “terrorism”. Germany’s intelligence services disagree: In 2014, they published an assessment outlining that while some elements within the movement gave room for concern, they didn’t warrant an observation of the movement.

Mr Erdogan likes to cast himself as a cure for the chaos spreading across Turkey. Yet he is also one of its causes. Courting the nationalist vote, Mr Erdogan has ruled out peace talks with the PKK. Responding to PKK attacks against security targets in 2015, he inflamed the conflict by arresting Kurdish politicians, pulverising towns in the southeast, and displacing some 500,000 people.

The Alliance for Shared Values of the US & The Dialogue Platform of the UK have prepared a report on “UK’s relations with Turkey” that focuses on the Hizmet Movement. The report may be downloaded, disseminated for free and even printed. Representatives from these organizations were personally invited to submit written evidence by the Committee to explain Hizmet and provide Hizmet’s response to the AKP government’s allegations against Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet movement.

“Turkey desperately wants the U.S. government to extradite an imam [Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen],” Maddow explained. “They [the U.S.] have said that they are not extraditing him. But if that’s what you wanted, what if you could squeeze the personal financial interests of the American president as a way to get what you want from the American government?”