US Officials Refuted Turkish Ex-Intelligence Officer's Slander Against the Gulen Movement

A Turkish ex-intelligence officer's recent defamation campaign claiming that the Gulen Movement has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s is refuted by former US officials. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post has devoted his column, Spy Talk, this week to a hot debate going on in Turkey. What sparked the debate was a memoir by a former Turkish Intelligence Officer, Nuri Gundes. In his memoir, Gundes alleged that the movement sheltered 130 CIA agents at its schools in Central Asia. Post's Stein talked to former CIA officers about the accusations and asked them about their take on the issue. Stein says "Two ex-CIA officials with long ties to Central Asia cast doubt on Gundes’s charges.

Especially one of them, Mr. Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul and author of “The Future of Political Islam,” threw cold water on Gundes’s allegations: “I think the story of 130 CIA agents in Gulen schools in Central Asia is pretty wild,” Fuller said. “I cannot even imagine trying to credibly sell such a scheme with a straight face within the agency. As for Nuri Gundes, I am not aware of who he is or what he has written. But there is a lot of wild stuff floating around in Turkey on these issues and Gulen is a real hot button issue.” added the ex-CIA official. Stein also asked Fuller about the accusations arguing he has backed Gulen's visa issues and recommended him a green card. "I did not recommend him for a residence permit or anything else" said Fuller. "What I did do,” he explained, “was write a letter to the FBI in early 2006 …at a time when Gulen's enemies were pressing for his extradition to Turkey from the U.S. In the post 9/11 environment, they began spreading the word that he was a dangerous radical. In my statement to the FBI I offered my views…that I did not believe he posed a security threat of any kind to the U.S. I still believe that today, as do a large body of scholars on contemporary Islam. “I do not at all consider Gulen a radical or dangerous.” Fuller continued. “Indeed in my view--and I have studied a lot of Islamist movements worldwide--his movement is perhaps one of the most encouraging in terms of the evolution of contemporary Islamic political and social thinking…”

All in all, this time The Washington Post and a couple of former US officials busted claims and slanders against the Gulen Movement.

Read the article at Washington Post...