Gülen sides with Russia against Turkey concerning downed fighter jet

Turkey should not have shot down the Russian jet that had violated Turkish airspace in November, U.S.-based, self-exiled fugitive imam of the Gülen Movement Fethullah Gülen said to Russia-based Moskovskij Komsomolets daily yesterday.

"The Russian warplane should not have been shot down," he said, adding that Russia is a great country.

Turkey's ties with Russia were strained after Nov. 24, when a Russian fighter jet that violated Turkish air space was shot down by the Turkish Air Force over the Syrian border.

This is not the first time that the leader of the controversial movement, which is accused of infiltrating key governmental institutions in an alleged attempt to overthrow the government, has stood with countries that have strained ties with Turkey.

When the Mavi Marmara, which was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, was raided by Israeli forces in international waters in May 2010, Gülen openly criticized the İHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish nongovernmental organization that organized the flotilla. Ten people were killed and 55 wounded in the raid on the flotilla's main ship.

In a 2010 Wall Street Journal interview, Gülen commented on the foundation: "It is not easy to say if they [the İHH] are politicized or not." He said that the İHH should have sought permission from Israel before transporting aid to Gaza and that only the U.N is authorized to decide who is to blame for the incident. Despite the incident taking place in international waters, Gülen also said that Israel had the right to protect its territorial waters.

In his interview with Cüneyt Özdemir in 2010, he said: "They [on the flotilla] knew they were going there to get killed and went at their own discretion."

Furthermore, regarding the anti-PKK fight, it was previously reported that the movement had allegedly come together with the terrorist organization several times in order to reach a deal to collaborate in their respective fights against the state.

According to intelligence reports obtained by Sabah daily in October of last year, senior PKK leaders Murat Karayılan and Fehman Hüseyin, who is also known as "Bahoz Erdal," reportedly met several times with the Gülen Movement's imam for Iraq, Talip Büyük, and other senior Gülenist figures Cemal Bulut and Doğan Ertuğrul at a PKK camp in the Metina region of Northern Iraq.

The Gülen Movement has seen its alleged members and sympathizers purged from state institutions, the police and the judiciary, and authorities designated it a national threat as a terrorist organization. A string of judicial inquiries over the past two years has revealed the seedy side of the movement, promoting itself as a charity group that runs schools and working for interfaith dialogue.

The Movement, which has infiltrated key governmental bodies for years, was uncovered for the first time in the Feb. 7 operation when Istanbul's specially authorized prosecutors, Sadrettin Sarıkaya and Bilal Bayraktar, who are considered followers of the Gülen movement in the judiciary, issued a summons for MİT (National Intelligence Organization) Chief Hakan Fidan for collaborating with the PKK.

The Movement is also accused with overthrowing the government in the Dec.17 and Dec.25 investigations and former Zaman daily columnist and senior figure of the Gülen Movement, Hüseyin Gülerce said the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 operations were "an all-out attack," and added that he tried to stop Gülenists from conducting the operation. "[The Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 operations] were never bribery and corruption investigations for me. It was the third step after the Feb. 7 MİT crisis and Gezi Park protests. I have a clear conscience about that," Gülerce said.