Turkish intel chief visited Gülen twice: Witness testimony

ANKARA

Turkish journalist Fehmi Koru has said Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MİT) chief Hakan Fidan visited the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen in Pennsylvania twice. 

Koru, in his testimony as witness in the main case into the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) held at the Ankara Fourth Heavy Penal Court, said a high number of politicians visited Gülen.

“I know that the MİT head went to Pennsylvania twice. I don’t know if he took any files with him. I know that then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and plenty of other political figures went there too. I don’t think they went there just to accept his prayers. Visits were paid because it was accepted that Gülen was a force,” Koru said March 29, adding that he visited Gülen after Fidan was called to testify on Feb. 7, 2012.

Former prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya, who was arrested in February 2017, sought to summon Fidan and three other top MİT officials to testify on Feb. 7, 2012, over allegations stemming from discussions between MİT and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), known as the Oslo talks.

Koru said he offered to visit Gülen to then-President Abdullah Gül after Dec. 17, 2013, when a corruption case was launched, targeting figures close to the government and resulted in lasting enmity between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Gülenists.

He also said he presented the same offer to then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and it was accepted. 

According to his testimony, Koru then went to see Gülen with Alaattin Kaya, the grant holder of shuttered daily Zaman, which was closed down by the Turkish state in May 2016 over its links to the Gülenists. 

“We don’t have a problem with the government. We are happy with them,” Gülen allegedly told Koru in their meeting. 

Saying that he perceived Gülen as “a cleric” in 2013, Koru noted that “everyone was a part of the Gülen movement when it was thought that they were doing service to people.”