A Turkish military prosecutor has opened an investigation into allegations that a US-based Islamic preacher has sympathisers within the armed forces, Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz told the state-run Anadolu news agency on Wednesday. It is the latest move against a religious movement headed by cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose followers have been pushed out of key posts in the judiciary and police force amid a long-running feud with President Tayyip Erdogan, once Gulen's close ally.
Erdogan accuses Gulen's Hizmet (Service) movement of seeking to establish a "parallel state" and of orchestrating a corruption investigation that targeted the Turkish leader and his inner circle in late 2013 in a coup attempt.