An opposition politician who lost her ex-husband and 16-year-old son on the night of a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016 has claimed that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was tipped off about the coup a month in advance, local media reported on Tuesday.
Nihal Olçok, a founding member of the opposition Future Party (GP), whose ex-husband, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) publicist Erol Olçok, and son Abdullah Olçok were killed during the failed 2016 coup, made the claim in a live broadcast on the pro-opposition Halk TV.
“On June 11, 2016 the news that there would be a coup was relayed to Erdoğan by [AKP deputy] Şirin Ünal. Why did you close your ears to it? … Where did this self-confidence come from? Whom did you trust?” Olçok said, addressing the president due to the lack of any action by Erdoğan to prevent the coup attempt from taking place.
The attempted coup, which is still shrouded in mystery, was a false flag, according to many, aimed at entrenching the authoritarian rule of Erdoğan by rooting out dissidents and eliminating powerful actors such as the military in his desire for absolute power.
“Is this a joke? Who could stage a coup against a 12-year-old government [with nobody knowing about it]?” Olçok said, adding that the AKP government can only be “in power” but not “powerful” as long as they fail to shed light on what really happened during the coup attempt, including the murder of her ex-husband and son.
According to Olçok, Erdoğan lost people’s “love and trust” on July 15, but he let that happen in order to have the authority that he has over them today.
“The person who benefits from a crisis is the one who causes it, so we have to look at him [as the person responsible for it],” the GP politician said, noting that the best move the AKP government had made regarding the attempted coup was to defend themselves with perception operations that Olçok argued led to the coup in the first place.
Olçok said that she would ask Erdoğan about the attempted coup one day, either in front of the whole nation or while he is fleeing the country at one of the Greek or Bulgarian borders in Edirne, adding, “I know that no press organization in the world will remain silent when they are told that Nihal Olçok shares her questions [about July 15] with the press.”
In February of this year, Olçok also said during a program on Halk TV that her son Abdullah was killed to keep the government’s story on the July 15 coup attempt intact, because, according to her, his testimony would harm the official narrative.
Commenting on Olçok’s claim that it was AKP MP Ünal who tipped off Erdoğan about the coup plans, author and documentary filmmaker Ümit Kıvanç on Wednesday said in a tweet that it would explain why Ünal wasn’t treated as a suspect when Nadira Kadirova, a young woman from Uzbekistan who was working as a maid in Ünal’s home, was found dead in his home on Sept. 23, 2019. Although it was found that the gun that killed Nadirova belonged to Ünal, her death was ruled a suicide and the case was closed.
Evinde gencecik kadının vurulmuş bulunduğu adamın neden bir saniye bile şüpheli muamelesi görmediği ve sıkı sıkı kollandığı konusunda zihnimiz aydınlanmaya başlar belki… https://t.co/j4ZvQ3Jyut
— ümit kıvanç (@umit_k) November 1, 2022
The failed coup killed 251 people and injured more than a thousand others. After announcing the next morning that the coup had been crushed, the Turkish government immediately began a sweeping purge of military officers, judges, police, teachers and other state employees, ultimately leading to the dismissal of more than 130,000 civil servants and nearly 30,000 members of the military.
On the night of the abortive putsch, President Erdoğan immediately blamed the Gülen movement for the attempt. He has targeted followers of the movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the Dec. 17-25, 2013 corruption investigations involving then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Erdoğan, who dismissed the investigation as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, labeled the movement a terrorist organization and began targeting its members. He jailed thousands, including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigation as well as journalists who reported on it.
After the coup attempt, Erdoğan stepped up the crackdown on the movement. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the failed coup or in any terrorist activities.