By Murat Paksoy and Sefa Mutlu
ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's vice president on Tuesday called those attempting to stage a coup in the country “the weak-minded” who sold their souls to FETO’s U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen for one dollar.
“Those, who attempted to stage the coup [in 2016] were not the honorable members of our heroic Turkish Armed Forces, but were the weak-minded, helpless and poor people who sold their souls and bodies to the traitor in Pennsylvania [Gulen] for one dollar,” Fuat Oktay said at the opening ceremony for the new academic year at the National Defense University in Istanbul.
During his speech, he praised the Turkish military and soldiers for their role in the peaceful atmosphere in the country.
The military operations conducted just after the 2016 coup attempt showed how the operational power of the Turkish Armed Forces has increased after FETO members were wiped away from the army, Oktay said.
Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield, which began in August 2016 and ended in March 2017, eliminated terrorists along the Syrian border.
On Jan. 20, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch to remove YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists from Afrin. On March 18, Turkish troops and the Free Syrian Army liberated the Afrin district center.
Stating that system of training military personnel has completely been changed, the vice president added: “All of the schools -- which became a source of FETO’s pro-coup mindset -- were shut [...] and a totally new system was set up.”
According to the Turkish government, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.