Some 4 ½ years after a failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey said six more members of a group it calls terrorists and supporters of an exile cleric sought asylum in Greece.
Turkey’s pro-state Daily Sabah newspaper said they were from what the government calls the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) were on a boat which docked at a port in western Crete's Kuremenos region.
Their application will be examined after a health check, officials said according to local media there. Turkey said FETÖ and its Pennsylvania-based leader Fethullah Gülen led the coup attempt which saw 251 people killed and nearly 2,200 injured and led Erdogan to purge civil society, the military, courts and begin jailing dozens of journalists since then.
Turkey accuses FETÖ of plotting to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary which are under Erdogan’s control.
The paper said more than 8,000 FETÖ members crossed into Greece after that until now, accusing Greece’s New Democracy government as it did the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA of harboring terrorists by admitting them.