Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has accused international media organizations of launching ‘black propaganda’ against Turkey following a failed coup attempt on July 15.
Speaking with union leaders in İstanbul on Saturday, Yıldırım said Gülen sympathizers, who the Turkish government accuses of masterminding the failed coup, are behind the international propaganda against Turkey.
“The source of this black propaganda is FETÖ [acronym for the Fethullahist Terror Organization, used by the government to refer to Gülen movement sympathizers], which it claims organized the failed coup. It [FETÖ] is a global [terrorist] organization. It is a closed group and their relations are murky,” he said.
Yıldırım underlined that purpose of such a “perception operation” by international media is to given the impression that “there is no stability in Turkey,” “there is war in Turkey,” “there is no rule of law in Turkey” or that “people are dying every day in Turkey”.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the government along with President Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Despite Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen and the movement having denied the accusation, Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.