Turkey's military has just one responsibility, defending the country, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said Sunday in a live interview.

Speaking nearly a month after an attempted coup by rogue elements in the armed forces, Kurtulmuş told Fox TV, "It is necessary to establish a Turkish Armed Forces which devotes itself just to defending the country, which never deals in politics, which has no hysterical wish to intervene in any kind of politics."

"I hope the July 15 attack, the coup attempt, will pave the way for such a result in Turkey and I believe we will manage to do it," he added.He said the attempted coup, which saw at least 240 people killed, was "more treacherous" than a simple attempt to overthrow the government, alleging it was an effort to trigger civil war and prepare Turkey for foreign invasion.

"It is obvious," he said. "We see it more clearly as we get new data and new solid evidence."

The suspected mastermind behind the failed coup is Fethullah Gülen, a U.S. based terror-cult leader who has been requested to be extradited from the U.S. by Ankara.

The U.S., however, has been indifferent to Turkey's request, saying it is still reviewing the request's formality and it could take months or even years for the extradition to take place.

Turkey has put increasing pressure on the U.S. over the extradition of Gülen. In addition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ and other top authorities stressed that the U.S.'s failure to extradite Gülen could seriously affect bilateral relations.

Hüseyin Gülerce, ex-general director of the Gülenist Zaman daily, told Daily Sabah in an interview that Gülen has been a tool of the 40-year plan to invade Turkey.

"The U.S. has always known about the infiltration of FETÖ into state institutions," Gülerce said.