Turkey to further dig into Gülenists foreign links

In his daily Hürriyet column on Aug. 7, journalist Abdulkadir Selvi wrote that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently instructed his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials to prepare a substantial report on the foreign links of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ) of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen.

The investigation will reportedly aim to reveal the "undercover foreign relations" of FETÖ members within the Turkish state's most important institutions like the Armed Forces, the gendarmerie and the police department. But this work will differ from that of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), which submitted a report on FETÖ's links with other countries and their secret services to parliament in May.

The MİT's report cited some evidence on how FETÖ was able over the years to expand its influence and activities "under the umbrella of one or several intelligence services." It described how FETÖ was generating enormous amounts of money from its educational institutions across the world, particularly through charter schools in the United States, which is largely how it sponsored its many activities.

Unlike the MİT report, the one demanded by Erdoğan will instead be focused on the ideological aspect of FETÖ-related groups and their foreign counterparts. 

The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) recently penned its own report on how the group "abused the Islamic values and beliefs of the Turkish public." However, Erdoğan publicly criticized former Diyanet head Mehmet Görmez for being too late in drafting such a report.

Erdoğan seems to be trying to push FETÖ discussions in the direction of its less-discussed aspect: The ideological misuse of Islam in the hands of Gülen, a primary...