Turkey will not allow July 15 coup attempt to happen again: Erdoğan

ISTANBUL

Turkey will never allow another coup attempt to happen again, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed on May 27, speaking at the first iftar fast-breaking meal of Ramadan, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

 “The July 15 [2016] calamity, which we experienced at a time when we believed that Turkey’s coup era was over ... left deep traces in the heart and memory of our nation,” Erdoğan said in an event with the relatives of killed state officials and military personnel.      

 “Turkey is now fighting against terrorist organizations more decisively than in the past, and the July 15 victory had a great effect on this,” he added.    
 
“We hope that we drew a lesson from July 15 and we will not allow it to happen again,” he said.      

The movement of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, referred to by the government and prosecutors as the Fetullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), is believed to have orchestrated last July’s coup attempt in Turkey, which killed 250 people and injured nearly 2,200.      

Erdoğan had stated in April that Turkey’s seven-month Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria had left 67 service personnel killed.      

Meanwhile, nearly 30,000 people came together at the historic Sultan Ahmet Square in Istanbul for the first fast-breaking of Ramadan, Mustafa Demir, the mayor of Istanbul’s Fatih district, said in a statement on May 27.      

The Fatih district municipality, which organized the event, distributed food to the guests.      

“Today there are not only people attending from Istanbul and Turkey, but also from America and China and many other countries,” Demir said.