Erdogan's rival Gülen dies in exile at the age of 83

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U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who was accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, has died in U.S. exile at the age of 83, his movement and the Turkish government said on Monday.

Gülen, who had lived in the United States since 1999, was the bete noire of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who accused him of being the head of a “terrorist organization.”

“Our intelligence sources confirm the death of the leader of the FETO organization,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a news conference, using the Turkish term for Gülen's influential Hizmet movement of schools, businesses and charities.

Turkish public television TRT reported that the preacher, who had lived in Pennsylvania for a quarter of a century and was stripped of his Turkish citizenship in 2017, died in hospital overnight.

The news was first published on “October” died.

“The Honorable Fethullah Gülen, who spent every moment of his life serving the blessed religion of Islam and humanity, passed away today,” the post said, promising to share details of his funeral.

Gülen moved to the United States in 1999, reportedly for health reasons. From there he led Hizmet, a movement that has an extensive network of public schools on every continent.

But the organization has long been blacklisted by Turkish authorities, who refer to it as FETO, the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETO).

“This organization has become a threat rarely seen in the history of our nation,” Fidan said, accusing his supporters of “being used as a weapon against their own country.”

And Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Türkiye's fight against the movement would continue despite Gülen's death.

“The fight against this organization, which represents a national security problem for our country… will continue,” he wrote on X.

Gülen, once an ally who helped Erdogan when he became prime minister in the early 2000s, became persona non grata after a corruption scandal engulfed the Turkish prime minister's inner circle in 2013.

Erdogan accused Gülen and later accused him of terrorist ties, calling his Hizmet movement a “FETO terrorist organization.”

Gülen repeatedly emphasized that his influential movement was merely a network of charitable and economic institutions.

The situation worsened in 2016 when Erdogan accused him of staging a botched coup, triggering a massive crackdown.

During this purge, about 700,000 people were prosecuted and about 3,000 Gülen followers were sentenced to life in prison for what authorities said were their roles in the coup.

Another 125,000 people were fired from public institutions, including 24,000 soldiers and thousands of judges, and authorities closed private educational institutions, media companies and publishing houses.

Turkey still regularly rounds up Gülen followers in its own country and demands their extradition from the countries where his network is active.

Turkish security sources quoted by private broadcaster NTV said very few people were expected at Gulen's funeral and that his body would likely be buried in the United States at a secret location.

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