Sri Lanka Should Be Cautious About Parties Connected To FETO - Turkish Envoy

FETO members residing in Sri Lanka have left the country Schools operated by them sold to a Sri Lankan businessman

- Kelum Bandara

Turkish ambassador Rakibe Demet Sekercioglu, in an interview with Daily Mirror, speaks about Fetullahist Terrorist Organization, commonly known as FETO and its operations in Sri Lanka in the past. The interview:

Q How do you describe FETO?

Fetullahist Terrorist Organization, commonly known as FETO is a clandestine, criminal and terrorist network. It is unprecedented in terms of its global reach, ambitions and methods. Let me explain: in the 1970s, Fetullah Gülen and his followers disguised themselves as a benign, charitable education movement. They first started establishing schools in Turkey and later around the world. At the peak of their power, they controlled thousands of schools in Turkey and more than eight hundred educational institutes worldwide.

It appeared years later that this was the first step of an infiltration campaign where kids and their parents were recruited. The promise seemed to be innocent: a better education and a good job. Actually, they were indoctrinated and turned into unquestioning foot soldiers of Fetullah Gülen who claims to be the “Chosen One”. The second step was to infiltrate FETO affiliated students into critical government posts. Mass-scale exam cheatings were organized.

Thus, the organization that disguised itself as an education movement gradually turned into a secretive operational structure aiming to transform the society by taking control of the Turkish state from within, destroying democratic foundations of the Republic and establishing a new state under the absolute rule of Fetullah Gülen, whom it considers as “Imam of the Universe”.