On Tuesday, as Türkiye marked the ninth anniversary of the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reaffirmed that the country will continue to fight the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) until it no longer poses a threat.
"We will continue our fight against FETÖ with the same determination, without slowing down," Erdoğan said in his address at a commemoration ceremony at police headquarters in Ankara’s Gölbaşı, The Caspian Post reports citing Daily Sabah.
Erdoğan underlined that the sacrifices of the martyrs and the struggles of the veterans on July 15 "were not in vain," emphasizing that the vision of a Türkiye free from terrorism will be their legacy.
"Our Parliament, the Presidential Complex, the General Staff headquarters, the Ankara Police Department, TRT and TÜRKSAT, as well as the Special Operations Headquarters in Gölbaşı, were attacked," he reminded.
Describing FETÖ members as "the 21st-century assassins," Erdoğan reminded that 253 citizens have been killed.
"We can never repay the heroes who sacrificed their lives to keep our country alive, but refused to surrender their homeland, which they considered more precious than their own lives, to the invaders."
"We successfully overcame the organization's greatest threats and greatest attacks. First, on Dec. 17 and 25, and then on July 15, we defeated the traitors. However, we have still not been able to eradicate the FETÖ virus from our system completely," Erdoğan said.
The defeated coup attempt, in which 252 people were killed and 2,734 were wounded, was plotted and carried out by FETÖ.
Along with the 2016 coup attempt, FETÖ is also accused of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Türkiye has targeted the terrorist group's active members and sleeper cells nonstop, and its influence has been much reduced since 2016. However, the group maintains a vast network, including infiltrators suspected of still operating within Turkish institutions.
FETÖ backers in army ranks and civil institutions have disguised their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt. FETÖ is implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel its massive network of infiltrators everywhere. In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
Those apprehended mainly were low-ranking members of the group, as high-ranking members managed to flee the country before and immediately after the coup attempt.
