UPDATES WITH MORE QUOTES FROM PETEK
By Ali Hakan Der
ANKARA (AA) - The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) is behind the July 15 defeated coup that left 250 people dead and around 2,200 injured, according to a parliamentary committee's draft report released on Friday.
The draft report will be submitted to the parliamentary speaker in 15 days for his final approval.
Resat Petek, who chaired the parliamentary inquiry committee into the attempt, said the draft report "clearly reveals" FETO was behind the coup bid.
After evaluating all evidence and documents, the committee has come to the conclusion that FETO/PDY decided and acted in the coup bid in cahoots with the so-called leadership of Fetullah Gulen, Petek said.
Fetullah Gulen has "committed forgery on numerous occasions, but he never went through an investigation. He got his green [Turkish] passport through fake documents," he said, adding that: "Documents and evidences collected by our commission confirm that."
The committee chairman also pointed out the lack of intelligence prior to the attempt.
He said the fact that there was no advanced information about the coup bid proves "without a doubt…an intelligence failure".
He said a soldier from the army’s aviation regiment played a key role in informing the chief of the National Intelligence Agency, also known as MIT, on July 15, 2016, and termed it as a big factor in forcing the coup plotters to pull the time of the coup forward to 8 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), July 15, 2016, instead of 3 a.m. (0000 GMT), July 16, 2016.
Petek, who is a member of parliament of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party from southwestern Burdur province, also said FETO builds ties with any stakeholder that is in power at a given time and is not bound to a single party, but rather it infiltrates the political set up.
"We have arrived at the conclusion that this is not an organization that communicates with just a single political party while keeping other parties at bay.
“Time to time, whether it is the ruling party or coalition parties, this organization finds out a way to use political parties to infiltrate the state's higher institutions, including justice, military and the civil service," he said.