Turkish interior minister a closet Gülenist and must be dismissed - CHP official

The deputy group chair of Turkey’s main opposition party on Wednesday accused Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu of being a member of the political wing of an outlawed religious group accused of orchestrating the July 2016 coup attempt and called for his dismissal.

Soylu is a "provocateur’’ that is protecting the U.S.-based leader of the Gülen movement and must be immediately removed from duty, Tele1 news site cited Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Engin Özkoç as saying.

The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement, dubbed as the Fethullahist Terror Organisation (FETÖ) by Ankara, of carrying out the 2016 coup attempt. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and followers of the movement’s U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen had been allies before and after the Islamist party came to power in 2002, until they fell out at the end of 2013 when prosecutors linked to Gülen launched corruption charges against senior AKP figures. 

The Turkish interior minister is “working to cover the political wing of the Gülen movement, because he is one of its’ representatives,’’ according to Özkoç.

“He must immediately be removed from duty,’’ he added, “because it is not possible for the FETÖ’s political wing to emerge while he remains in the post.’’

After the 2016 coup attempt, more than 100,000 public sector workers were dismissed over alleged links to the Gülen movement and tens of thousands were arrested. But politicians have been markedly absent among the victims of the purges.

Moreover, Turkey’s ruling AKP has rejected calls by the CHP for a parliamentary investigation into the political establishment of the Gülen movement.