Gülenists, foreign groups cannot own Turkish military: Erdoğan

ANKARA

The Turkish military cannot be the “army of FETÖ or any foreign organization,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 23, referring to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization of U.S.-based Fethullah Gülen.

“This military is neither the military of coup plotters nor the military of FETÖ. It is not the army of any foreign organization. It is the army of the Turkish nation and Turkey,” Erdoğan said at the graduation ceremony of the Turkish War Academy.

“Every assault against the Turkish Armed Forces is an assault on me,” he said, adding that he is the “chief commander of the Turkish army responsible for protecting the honor of every single officer.”

Erdoğan ruled out “any move that would humiliate soldiers” in the struggle against forces that carried out the coup attempt and “traitors who infiltrated the military.”

“Today, we present the first graduates of our Military Academy, reconstructed after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt,” Erdoğan said, adding that all coup plotters have been discharged from the military and an “entirely national structure” has now been achieved within the Turkish Armed Forces.

“Our army is for all of us, as [the founder of the Republic of Turkey] Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is the common value of our nation, he said.