Head of the General Staff of Turkish Armed Forces, General Hilmi Ozkok made recently a statement concerning the government’s supporting the extremists. According to Ozkok, while being Prime Minister the present Foreign Minister Abdulla Gyul was personally supporting the radical Islamite structures. The general promised to investigate the case and to inform the public about the results.
The Prime Minister Rejeb Erdoghan also does not hide his ties with extremist Islamite organizations which are connected in a network headed by the famous fundamentalist Fatullah Gyulen. This figure is being wanted because of propaganda of the ideas of shariat which are contradicting to the constitution, and for the activity aimed at changing of the country’s temporal structure. Gyulen has united all the followers of the reactionary religious directions founded by Said Nursi. The latter’s followers, calling themselves ”nurchular”, used to act hiddenly and were undergoing pressures from the special services. Everything changed when the Party of Justice and Development came, and the new government started to support the extremists denying the ideology of Kemalism. The idea of ”nurchular” is based on a concept denying the existence of a temporal power. According to their ideology, the country should be governed by the clergy. They consider the reforms of Attatyurk a crime, and Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the Turkish Republic – a betrayer and atheist. These ideas are being spread all over the world through religious schools financed by the followers of Gyulen. The branches of these organizations are operating in all the Turkish-language countries, as well as in Yemen, China, Kenya, Senegal, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Muslim Republics of the Russian Federation. It is known that Fattullah Gyulen has contacts with different radical Islamitee groupings, including those involved in terrorist activities.
The followers of this movement have rather firm positions also in Azerbaijan, as the Echo newspaper reports. It voices its concern that the recent change of power in Turkey may lead to development of Islamite movement in Azerbaijan. This is rights, if taking into account the fact that during his visit to Baku Rejeb Erdoghan was openly demonstrating his feelings towards the followers of the ideas of Gyulen in Azerbaijan. A businessman accompanying the Prime Minister during the visit told the ”Hyurriet” that ”The supporters of Gyulen met Erdoghan in Baku”.
According to Turkish special services, the emissaries of Gyulen entered Azerbaijan in 1992, immediately after it became independentt. From that time the local branches became rather strong and as there was no counteraction of the state, thousands of Azerbaijani citizens were involved in the organization. First of all they established a TV channel in Azerbaijan where the Turkish ”Samanyolu” TV channel is also being rebroadcasted, Echo writes.
The above-mentioned facts prove that Baku has already become the second (after Ankara) center of extremist network guided by radical Islamite Fetullah Gyulen. If in Ankara some forces are still trying to prevent the development of religious extremism, Azerbaijan does not control it. The state committee on religious organizations does not even try to do anything for eliminating the activity of ”nurchulars”. It will not be a surprise if Azerbaijan soon becomes a space for approbations of the plan on overthrow of the temporal power.
