ISTANBUL // Turkey moved the post-coup purge on to the medical profession on Tuesday, issuing arrest warrants for 100 staff, including doctors, at the main military hospital in Ankara in what is thought to be the first time the clampdown has targeted a medical establishment.
Staff at the Gulhane Military Medical Academy (Gata) are suspected of helping to fast-track supporters of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen into the military by giving them favourable medical reports. The Turkish government believes Mr Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, was the mastermind behind last month’s coup attempt through a group he allegedly runs called the Fethullah Terror Organisation (Feto) – a charge he denies.
“Gata is crucial because this is where fitness and health reports are issued,” said an official. “There is strong evidence suggesting Feto members infiltrated this institution to slow down the career progress of their rivals within the military and fast-track their supporters.”
Similar claims have also been made about military schools where officials have said exams were rigged. Almost half of Turkey’s generals were fired after the coup.
Turkey has formally asked the United States to arrest Mr Gulen and president Erdogan has grown increasingly frustrated with what he perceives as Washington’s slowness to respond.
“How can it be, when we are strategic partners and I ask you on behalf of my country to hand someone over on the basis of a national security strategy document, you keep on hiding and sheltering him?” said the president, adding that Mr Gulen’s main source of income came from the US with US$200 (Dh734) to $300 million coming from charter schools run by foundations linked to him.
Continuing his wide-sweeping reforms of all state institutions, Mr Erdogan announced Turkey’s intelligence operation was to be split into separate units handling foreign espionage and domestic or counter-intelligence. The president has been scathing about the failure of the National Intelligence Service to warn him of the coup, complaining that he only found out about it in a phone call from his brother-in-law.
Domestic intelligence will be handled mostly by the police and gendarmerie (a paramilitary wing of the police) while the foreign intelligence sector will report directly to the Turkish president.
Turkey’s current intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, has come under pressure to resign, especially following reports that he discovered the coup plot before the government, but appears to have been forgiven. “We are all mortal,” said deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus.
* Agence France-Presse