Your Excellency Turkish Ambassador to Uganda, Honorable Protocol Guests, Distinguished Turkish Citizens, Esteemed Collogues, and Eminent Press Members,

On July 15, 2016, as HE President Erdoğan was preparing to host HE President Museveni for an official visit to Turkey, a bloody treacherous coup attempt took place in Turkey that resulted in the postponement of the visit.

This heinous attempt was thwarted by the resistance of the civilian population. The coup was organized by Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) that infiltrated into the capillaries of the state.

FETÖ constitutes a new generation terror group that has a potential to threaten international peace and security. FETÖ maintains its unlawful activities through crypto-schools and associations located in various countries. FETÖ takes down its targets through methods like assassination and blackmailing when it fails to eliminate its targets through its ostensibly legitimate political, judicial or civil society activities.

Representing itself as a religious movement or a civil society organization, FETÖ is in fact a clandestine illegal organization. FETÖ’s ultimate goal is to seize the state and obtain economic, social and political ruling power.

With the economic gain earned through illegal avenues, the terror group solidified its networks in education and media as well as its human resources. Considering the significance of media for terror groups in today’s world, media has become an indispensable tool for terror groups. The main motivations of FETÖ’s particular focus on education are to have access to human resources, gain legitimacy in Turkey and abroad by means of educational activities, and to generate income from these activities. The method FETÖ developed for the young people studying abroad is built on the accommodation of these students and enabling the students to enter reputable universities. The terror group has resorted to conceal its activities by assigning their schools to other persons in non-Western societies. The methods and strategies that FETÖ has resorted to for decades in Turkey to infiltrate state apparatuses are also practiced in other countries it operates in.

FETÖ started its activities in Africa in the 1990s, by infiltrating Turkey’s strategy of intensifying relations with Africa and aimed to spread its activities mentioned above to the entire continent. FETÖ is capable of capturing popularity in African countries, especially among the middle class. It has made a certain amount of investments dedicated to building relationships with future administrative elites of the region, and can create influence capabilities by providing the children of high-level politicians and bureaucrats with scholarships. Following the coup attempt of 2016, Turkey has begun taking measures against FETÖ not just on a national level but also on the international level. Since one of the most active and effective areas of operation of FETÖ, which is an international threat, is undoubtedly Africa, and since FETÖ’s networks in African countries pose a severe security threat to these countries as well as Turkey, Africa has been named as one of the centers of the fight against FETÖ by Turkey. In this process, as a result of Turkey’s diplomatic and civilian efforts, some African countries now consider FETÖ as an internal security threat and have banned or limited its activities in their countries. Countries such as Angola, Gambia and Morocco have stopped the operation of FETÖ schools within their countries. Via the work of the Maarif Foundation, the transfer of FETÖ-linked schools have been completed in Guinea, Niger, Somalia, Congo and Sudan, and agreements were made with 14 other countries regarding the transfer of schools under the control of the organization.

In conclusion; FETÖ poses a threat against all the countries FETÖ operates in since FETÖ is an international terror network which has infiltrated the mechanisms of more than a hundred states. This terror network can pacify state structures by infiltrating most critical state institutions. More importantly, it is capable of turning the key state institutions against the state by allying with foreign intelligence organizations. For this reason, the states where FETÖ operates in must cooperate in a collective effort to fight against this international terror threat in order to protect their national sovereignty, integrity and stability.

On the occasion of the July 15, Democracy and National Unity Day, we commemorate especially the founder of The Republic of Turkey, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and heroic comrade in arms, on July 15 and all our cherished martyrs with respect, mercy, gratitude and wish urgent healing to all our veterans.