İbrahim Karagül: Daesh is an occupation tool

Yeni Şafak and TVNET Editor-In-Chief İbrahim Karagül evaluated regional developments, assessing Daesh and Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ).

“We have been saying for a long time that Daesh was founded by the U.S. itself. Turkey is the only country that truly fought against Daesh. Daesh is not a terrorist organization, it is an occupation tool,” said Karagül.

A BBC report published on Monday titled “Raqqa’s dirty secret” exposed a secret deal with the U.S. and PKK that enabled hundreds of Daesh terrorists to flee Syria’s Raqqa and “spread out across Syria, even making it as far as Turkey.”

Karagül also evaluated Turkey’s struggle against FETÖ. “Turkey's struggle against FETÖ is being manipulated. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, they created projects to invade and dismantle Muslim territories. Operations to blind Turkey were conducted and this is continuing with various games in the region. Turkey has never been so surrounded,” he added.

A total of 249 people were martyred and more than 2,100 injured in the coup attempt perpetrated by FETÖ. The failed coup was organized by followers of U.S.-based Fetullah Gülen, who has pursued a long-running campaign to overthrow the government through supporters within the Turkish state, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

The Editor-In-Chief also spoke about the U.S. history of invasions, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Terrorist organizations are foreign threats, and fighting against terrorism is fighting against occupation. Countries like Iran and Turkey are ancient countries. These countries are not like Syria and Iraq,” Karagül said.

“After Sept. 11, Afghanistan was invaded and the same was done in Iraq in 2003. Now they are trying to do the same thing through Syria and Lebanon to head toward the Mediterranean. Turkey used to believe that so long as it remained within the Western axis, it would be protected. We used to follow a policy that tried to preserve what already existed. Turkey understood that so long as it was protected from the U.S. and the Atlantic, it would not be divided. The alliance with the U.S. has now reached a dangerous point,” he added.