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Turkey’s coup: The Gülen Movement, explained
by Dylan Matthews
July 16, 2016

In the chaos of the attempted coup apparently perpetrated by elements of the Turkish military on Friday, the nation’s president and incipient strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed the finger squarely at one source: the Gülen Movement. In an address to the nation via web video stream, Erdoğan explained that the coup attempt came from “a faction in the military, the parallels,” which Turkey observers understood as a reference to followers of Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Sunni cleric whose movement claims millions of followers in Turkey and around the world…Gülen was formerly a close ally of Erdoğan’s government, but they had a massive falling out in late 2013. Since then, Gülen and his movement — now officially designated as a terrorist group in Turkey — have emerged as one of the government’s favorite targets. READ MORE

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