Police in central Turkey discovered that a man detained for being a member of FETÖ blamed for last year's coup bid was also a supporter of the PKK, a terrorist organization behind a string of terror attacks.
The suspect, identified as Hüseyin K., was among 14 suspects detained on Thursday in operations against the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in the central city of Kayseri and the southern city of Adana. The man, a student at Erciyes University in Kayseri, was a user of Bylock, the encrypted messaging app exclusively used by FETÖ members. Upon an investigation, police found that he shared pro-PKK messages on social media and made online propaganda for the terrorist organization.
Cooperation between the two terrorist groups was discovered after FETÖ members were found in one of the PKK's safe houses and a secret informant revealed that PKK terrorists had been given foreknowledge related to the July 15 coup attempt last year.
Fourteen FETÖ members were found in the house of two PKK suspects who were detained as part of a terror probe in the western province of Manisa. According to information in the Turkish media, the PKK terrorists were going to help the FETÖ members escape abroad.
Some of the FETÖ members detained in the house were found to be imams for the terrorist group. Fake passports, identity cards and money were also seized in the home. Meanwhile, a secret FETÖ informant in the southeastern Siirt province confessed that two PKK terrorists informed him of a coup attempt in Turkey that was due to take place. The informant claimed the two terrorists approached him on July 14, 2015, a day before the coup attempt, and told him that the president and the prime minister would be killed, and that a coup attempt would be staged.
There is also other proof of past FETÖ-PKK collaboration. A lieutenant arrested for links to FETÖ revealed that the group helped him to enroll in a military school despite his links to the PKK. Batman Governor Ahmet Deniz told Anadolu Agency (AA) in August that there were some radio recordings of the PKK in which they call upon FETÖ terrorists and their own members to "embrace one another."
FETÖ, which has posed as a religious charity for years, is blamed for masterminding the coup attempt as well as two similar attempts to topple the government in 2013. Judiciary authorities say the group used its infiltrators in the military, law enforcement, bureaucracy and judiciary for the insurrection. Fetullah Gülen, the U.S.-based leader of the group, refuses to return to Turkey to testify in the coup trials. He faces multiple life terms.