Communications director says Erdoğan led fight against FETÖ

Turkey's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun on Feb. 11 said that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the helm in the fight against FETÖ from day one and gave the orders of operations which eliminated its members in state institutions.

"If our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not resist and gave in to tutelage, FETÖ, which aimed to shelve the democratic governance and that has been gradually implementing its sneaky ambitions for 50 years, would have occupied Turkey," Altun said in a tweet.

Altun added that the president has administered and followed the elimination of FETÖ members from the state's institutions, security units and politics.

The fight against FETÖ was also taken overseas, Altun said, as Erdoğan has many times brought up the struggle against the terrorist organizations at many high-level meetings.

Many "treasonable" steps of FETÖ, including the defeated coup attempt of 2016, were "destroyed thanks to our president's stance and our nation's efforts to protect their will," he added.

"The nation and the leader it supported defeated the putschists," he said.

"The architects, supporters and hitmen of FETÖ will be held accountable," Altun stressed.

FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen orchestrated the defeated coup attempt of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people killed and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.