Interview: Reclusive Turkish cleric condemns coup attempt, denies involvement
SAYLORSBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania cleric accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being behind the weekend coup attempt insisted Monday that he would have tried to stop any takeover had he known about it.
“I condemn and reject in the strongest terms the attempted coup,” Fethullah Gulen, 77, said in an interview with USA TODAY and several other reporters.
Seated in a reception room in his 25-acre Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center in the Pocono Mountains of eastern Pennsylvania, he denied any involvement in Friday's coup, as he has said repeatedly all weekend.
“I even reject and condemn in the strongest terms the idea, the consideration of a military coup,” Gulen said through an interpreter. “If I had the chance I would stand in front of the people who would attempt such a thing and open my arms and beg them to stop.”
Erdogan, who beat down the attempted coup by Saturday morning, has rounded up and dismissed thousands of members of the military, police and judiciary he accuses of being followers of Gulen and plotting against Turkey’s democratically elected government.
Gulen, a former political ally of Erdogan, preaches a moderate form of Islam and has lived in self-exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. His followers run a network of charter schools and cultural centers in the United States and are prolific political donors.
He met with the small group of reporters Monday afternoon in a reception area adjacent to his private apartment at the religious retreat, an expanse of green lawns, trees and pathways paved with stone that visitors enter past an armed guard.
“Even if, at the helm of the country there are people who would like to replace me and suppress me and oppress me at the level of blood-sucking vampires, then I do not want to remove them with anti-democratic means,” he said. “This is my attitude toward any and even the idea of the consideration of a military coup.”
Erdogan and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim have said they intend to file an extradition request with the United States to have Gulen sent back to Turkey. Gulen called that effort and the prosecution of his followers in Turkey “a witch hunt” that began two years ago and has been escalating ever since.
Erdogan has called Gulen's followers terrorists who have a secret parallel structure that infiltrated all aspects of government. Gulen described his followers as peaceful members of his movement who “wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
He urged his followers to be docile and respond without violence.
“According to media reports, they will imprison, eliminate and purge thousands of people,” Gulen said about Turkish authorities. “My message is, if someone beats you, act like you don’t have hands. If someone slurs you, act like you don’t have a tongue. Society is already polarized enough, don’t make it worse.”
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