Erdoğan once again vows to ‘clear FETÖ from state’

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has once again vowed to clear Turkey’s state institutions of members of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), saying the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will do “everything necessary within the boundaries of the law.”

“We will clear the state mechanism of them, we will clean it. Without this sterilization, our state mechanism will not work comfortably,” Erdoğan said on Nov. 7, addressing the AKP’s party group at parliament.

“It is all clear how they organized themselves within our Armed Forces, how they organized within our police force, how they infiltrated our state’s institutions,” he added.

“Now we are in a period of cleansing. With the judiciary, we will do whatever the law necessitates to the end and we will move on,” Erdoğan added.

The president also dismissed criticisms that the government’s post-July 2016 coup purges have been indiscriminate and have victimized thousands of people unrelated to FETÖ.

“Our nation diagnosed the real face of the FETÖ gang on the Dec. 17-25,” Erdoğan said, referring to the 2013 corruption investigations launched against senior government figures, resulting in lasting enmity between the AKP and Fethullah Gülen, a primary suspect in the coup attempt cases.

Erdoğan claimed that the corruption probes were a part of a “bigger plot against Turkey.”

“We cried out telling [people] to take their children away from [FETÖ’s] schools, telling them to withdraw money from their banks. Those who did not withdraw money from their banks now come to us saying they did not do these things willingly. But you did indeed do all that willingly,” he added.

“Today we have a clear conscience because we had warned people,” he said.