Three countries shut down schools administrated by Gülen movement

Days after the official visits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, three countries, including Azerbaijan and Senegal, shut down the Gülen-run schools, and five more countries are in the process of closing the schools being operated by the Gülen movement.

During his recent overseas visits, the Turkish President discussed the parallel structure-run schools in those countries and called on his counterparts to close these schools.

Last week, Erdoğan told journalists, who accompanied him on his return flight from visiting Albania, that parallel structure-linked Turkish schools abroad would be taken under a government foundation or closed.

Some countries, such as Azerbaijan, Gabon and Senegal, have already shut down the Gülenist schools. Kosovo, Congo, Kazakhstan, Somalia and Japan also launched the process to close the schools. Some other countries' foreign ministry and education ministry requested Turkey to take over the schools or to refer an institute for shifting the authority. The managing committees of the Gülenist schools, which run under the education ministries of Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan, would reportedly be changed very soon.

Some countries expressed to the Turkish authority that they didn't want these schools anymore, and offered Turkey to take over the schools in order to protect the students.

The Turkish Education Ministry plans to establish an Education foundation, or Maarif Vakfı in Turkish, that will take over the responsibility of all Turkish schools abroad.

“They (the parallel structure) tried to make a coup. We, as the State of the Turkish Republic, are not the guarantor of them anymore. It was unveiled that they are a terrorist organization that tried to destroy the state under the mask of education," Erdoğan told his counterparts, during recent overseas visits.

According to the Turkish government, the "parallel structure" refers to the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen's movement and his supporters.

The government accused the alleged clandestine Gülen movement for masterminding a plot to undermine the elected Turkish government.

The members of the parallel structure inside police and judiciary launched two big operations on Dec. 17 and 25, 2013, to overthrow the government.

From then, the government has been conducting operations against the members of the parallel structure and detained hundreds of them, including police officers.

A Turkish criminal court declared the structure as a terror organization and issued an arrest warrant for Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the organization.

During last week's visit to the center of the Balkans, Albania, Erdoğan recalled the issue and requested his Albanian counterpart to take necessary steps for closure of the parallel state-affiliated schools operating in his country.

At his meetings with the head of the states which he visited or during their visit to Turkey, Erdoğan raised the illegal activities of the structure and said that the schools, that were opened with the references of the Turkish State and its representatives, tried to plot a coup against Turkey's political authorities behind the masks of education. He added that Turkey would not be a reference for these schools from now on.

Erdoğan mentioned that Turkey's high authority considered the structure as one of the biggest threats to the state and continues to struggle against it. He also strongly warned that the schools could be the cause of the same threat being present in their countries, too.