Turkey restructures intelligence after coup attempt

ISTANBUL

The National Intelligence Agency (MİT) will be restructured in the wake of the failed July 15 coup attempt, believed to have been masterminded by the Fetullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ), Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said.

“We are exerting new efforts regarding MİT. Due to the developing communications technologies and world conditions, intelligence agencies should be renewed. For instance, Sept. 11, 2001, was a milestone for the U.S. They reconstructed their intel agencies after that date,” he told foreign correspondents in a meeting in Istanbul, adding that the domestic intelligence should be strengthened and that preventive intelligence was “very significant.”

“July 15 showed us that protective measures and preventive intelligence are very significant. I wish that the coup attempt could have been prevented even if we hadn’t received any intelligence. We will restructure the intelligence as domestic and foreign. There will be an intelligence coordination structure above them, of which the purpose will be to make the domestic and foreign ones work together and supervise them,” he said.