ISTANBUL (WJC) — Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said his government would not succumb to “the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the lobby of the Turkish-Greek minority”, a sentence he said in regards to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s words two weeks ago that members of the Gülen movement had joined forces with the Mossad.
“I announce it from here: we have not and will not succumb to the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the Turkish-Greek minority’s lobby,” saidDavutoğlu told a congress of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) in Istanbul on Sunday. “I call out to the parallel lobby that sent them a message: We will stand before you with dignity no matter where you are; you will be despicable for the treason you have done to this nation.”
While addressing a meeting of business leaders in Istanbul on 31 January,Erdoğan had said the US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s supporters, “the parallel structure,” was in cooperation with Israeli intelligence organization, the Mossad. “The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see this structure is cooperating with … Shame on them if they still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan has accused the followers of Gülen of illegal wire-tappings and a “coup attempt,” starting from the revelation of a large corruption investigation in December 2013 that included four former ministers and their sons, who were later acquitted of all the charges pressed against them.