Last week, the Turkish government’s war on the movement led by Fethullah Gulen reached the National Security Council (MGK), the body that shapes the Turkish state’s security policies. Battling the “parallel state,” as the government calls the Gulenists, was the top issue at the Oct. 30 meeting, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chairing the MGK for the first time after his election as head of state in August.
The council, which met for 10½ hours in its longest session ever, said in a written statement that a “resolute struggle” would be waged against “internal and external parallel structures engaged in illegal activities in a legal guise that threaten our national security and disrupt public order as well as illegal formations.”