President Erdoğan files complaint against all coup suspects

ANKARA

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a complaint against all suspects in the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt, which is widely believed to have been masterminded by the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). 

Erdoğan filed a six-paged motion to Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office via his lawyer Hüseyin Aydın, stating that “FETÖ has created a sick mindset over the years.” 

The motion also said FETÖ, whose leader is the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, acted with the intention of overturning the constitutional order of the Turkish Republic and that they infiltrated into state institutions “illegally.” 

Meanwhile, Erdoğan has said the source of the legitimacy of the president and ministers would be “the nation” under the government’s proposed executive presidential system, as parliament will no longer have the authority to conduct votes of no confidence in ministers and presidents. 

“The real votes of confidence are with the nation,” Erdoğan said in a speech at a Turkish Contractors Association ceremony on Feb. 22. 

Criticizing the current regulations, he said the opposition currently uses the opportunity to pose parliamentary questions to the government in order to block the legislative process.

“With parliamentary questions, the legislature has been brought to a state in which it is inoperable,” Erdoğan said. 

“Although it has only 150 deputies, the opposition has submitted parliamentary questions even though they know it will lead nowhere,” he added. 

“They haven’t even participated in voting on some laws,” Erdoğan said. 

The constitutional amendments that will be voted on in a referendum on April 16 include an article reducing parliament’s authority to submit parliamentary questions to ministers. 

Appealing for a “yes” vote from “every segment of society,” Erdoğan slammed opposition criticism that the draft constitution violated the principle of the separation of powers. 

“Only the executive branch will be brought together under one person. The legislative and judicial branches will be different. It is impossible for them to be eliminated,” he said.