The Ministry of Education announced Friday that 6,007 teachers who were previously suspended from duty as part of ongoing terror investigations would return to work starting from Monday.
The teachers were suspended upon an investigation opened after the July 15 coup attempt perpetrated by a small Gülenist junta embedded within the ranks of the Turkish military.
The ministry said that the vast majority of the teachers who will return to their duties were members of the Eğitim-Sen union. However, it said that not all inquiries about the teachers had been finalized.
Diyarbakır is the province with the most teachers returning to duty.
In the southeastern province 2,253 teachers, whose cases were finalized, will be returning to their classrooms on Monday. The teachers received the good news after passing an inspection by the Superintendent Board.
2,186 teachers in Diyarbakır are still under suspension over terrorism-links.
In eastern Van province, 466 teachers who were suspended for alleged links to FETÖ will also return to duty Monday.
Van Provincial Director of National Education Kıyasettin Kırekin said that 466 teachers out of a total of 733 were no longer suspended.
FETÖ faces heightened scrutiny after being accused of attempting to topple the democratically elected Turkish government in the July 15 coup attempt, in which 246 people were killed and 2,200 were injured.
Gülenists run a vast network of schools around the globe and the shadowy group is primarily invested in charter schools in the U.S., which receive government funding but operate independent of the public school system.
Several countries, including Chad, Guinea, Iraq, Rwanda and Somalia, took action following the July 15 coup attempt regarding FETÖ schools in their respective countries to be transferred to the Turkish Maarif Foundation.
Pakistan had also said it was fully committed to cooperate with Turkish authorities in its fight against FETÖ, who runs a global network of schools, from Africa to Central Asia, where it recruits more followers into the group.
