Background of Turkish Coups in a Nutshell

The history of 20th-century Turkey is rich with a number of coups.

Turkey's military staged three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressured Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, a pious Muslim mentor of Erdogan, out of power in 1997.

There have long been tensions between the military - which saw itself as the protector of the secular Turkish state - and Erdogan's Islamic-influenced (under Ahmet Davutoglu) AKP party.

Erdogan in 2007 and later wrongly held a series of arrests of political activists and journalists in a scandal that became known as "Ergenekon". However, these people were arrested by Turkish patriots who held a pro-Eurasian orientation.

It is thanks to active steps of the "Vatan" party leadership,  (formerly the Workers' Party) and the "Eurasian Movement" in Russia that Russian-Turkish relations began their high-level recovery processes after the incident with the attack on the Russian aircraft.

Erdogan has revised Turkey's position on Syria, which was imposed by pro-American experts, including the former Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. This changing course and willingness to work with the leaders of Russia and Syria has led to the consolidation of pro-Western elements within Turkey.

A key player on the US side in the coup was Fethullah Gülen, one of the founders of the sect of nursi Tariqah hiding in Pennsylvania, USA. This sect is feuding with Erdogan.

The activity of the religious sects of Fetullah Gülen "Khizmat" organization is prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Supreme Court on April 10, 2008, whereby it was recognized as an extremist group, a designation that the Central Asian republics have also given it.

As pointed out by former FBI employee Sybil Edmonds, Gülen schools are a well-disguised rear asset of the CIA and are used for operations in the different regions of the world. Gülen himself seeks to create a new Ottoman Empire, the new "Great Turan", which would include the Balkans, the Arab East, the Russian Federation and Central Asia, or in other words, a broad stretch of territory between the Balkan Mountains and the Great Wall of China.

Nurettin Veren, a former advisor to Gulen, also wrote the same in an exposé, which also mentions that Gülen receives financial assistance from the CIA.

Gülen is criticized by the representatives of various ethnic groups living in Turkey for his commitment to the policy of assimilation. Aland Mizell, an ethnic Kurd and teacher of the Law Faculty of the University of Texas, said: "Gulen schools are based on Ottoman ideology, and their purpose is the assimilation of the Kurds."

During the protests in 2013, Gülen cells openly organized against the Erdogan government and tried to carry out a "color revolution." Some media in Turkey as served as mouthpieces for Gülen's movement, such as the "Zaman" newspaper.

The pro-American coup it was made at precisely the moment when Erdogan apologized to Putin and expressed a strong willingness to make adjustments in Turkey's foreign policy by beginning to change its position on the Syrian issue.

Erdogan has possibility to call on the US to extradite Gulen and the other coup organizers that it's sheltering back to Turkey, but this doesn't look likely to be happen.

We can predict from this that there will be an escalation of tension between the US and Turkey. It is possible that the coup will have serious geopolitical consequences for Turkey, even all the way up to the level of it reviewing its status in NATO and relations with the US.

Recent facts:

The Turkish authorities have taken the decision to remove a total of 2 745 judges of various courts from their posts after the military coup in the republic.

One of the participants in the failed coup in Turkey was the pilot who shot down the Russian Su-24 military aircraft over Syria last November, claims Ankara mayor Melih Gokcek.