No traitors will be left alive this time, Turkish nationalist leader fumes over fresh coup rumors

ANKARA

Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has warned that “no traitors will be left alive” if another coup attempt happens as recent rumors suggest.

Speaking to MHP’s local representatives in the western province of İzmir on June 11, Bahçeli said he heard rumors that another coup attempt was in the making by the movement of the Pennsylvania-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.

The movement was designated by Turkey as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) and is widely believed to have orchestrated the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, which left at least 250 killed and many more injured.

After citing the threat posed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), too, Bahçeli said: “I warn those with disgusting intentions: If Turkey faces another attempt of occupation and another catastrophe, then no one among the criminals and traitors will be left alive. We will scratch the eyes out of those who have their eyes on our existence.”

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu was the highest ranking government official who had voiced concerns about another coup attempt by Gülenists.

“They have plans for a new coup and assassinations, but they have no power,” Soylu had said during a live program on private broadcaster CNN Türk on June 9.