National Intelligence Organization

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has implied that an ongoing probe into espionage and the leaking of secret state documents to media outlets can also reach main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as one of his deputies is already behind bars in the same case. 

The daily newspaper Sozcu reported Aug. 9 that a new intelligence service has come into existence under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Sozcu’s Aug. 10 issue was dominated by the story, aptly headlined “Shocking, Documented Allegation.”

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.

Five Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suspects of foreign nationality were detained on Aug. 7 in Istanbul, in an operation conducted jointly by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the Istanbul Police Department's counterterrorism bureau. 

The suspects are believed to have come to Istanbul to organize an attack, according to officials.

News items reported from the Turkish capital Ankara over the last few weeks are not quite consistent with the political predictability that one may have expected from a single-party government led by a president who recently won a referendum gathering all executive power.

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım is set to assume roles in key public offices including the Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) and the Turkish Wealth Fund, a post which was under the responsibility of Nurettin Canikli, who was appointed as the new defense minister after a cabinet reshuffle earlier this week.  

Could directives be superior to the law?

Answering this question may help resolve a deadlock when the entire debate over intelligence into coup activities focuses on a particular directive.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged Germany to "pull itself together" on July 21 amid an escalating row between the two countries, also refuting claims that German companies were under investigation in Turkey. 

A special unit in the Turkish Armed Forces is slated to be formed to clear members of the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) from the military, daily Milliyet reported on July 20.

The main duty of the unit will be to conduct personnel security investigations on military staff. 

The first anniversary of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt is over but there are still unanswered questions about it, which makes it more difficult to understand what actually happened that night and how the Gülenists, who are accused of plotting the coup, managed to stage it.