Q: What is your position on this coup attempt and the claims that you are involved in this?

Fethullah Gulen: I condemn and reject any coup whatsoever. I deplore and reject any coup attempt as well. I would raise my arms and would stop them saying that “this is a dead-end”, even against considerations of a coup, as the famous Turkish poet Necip Fazil said… This has always has been my general attitude; and my attitude will never change. If even the people who would like to drink my blood would come to the power through democratic elections, I would never consider or approve them being taken down through anti-democratic ways and methods. I do not and will never consider or approve such an attempt. Even if they [those elected] would drink my blood, I would go among people who are trying to bring them down and raise my arms and tell them this is dead-end.

What is Fethullah Gulen’s understanding of democracy?

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Hizmet Movement is not interested in attaining political power in Turkey or elsewhere in the world

[Erdogan] has called Hizmet a state within a state, which to me is a strange characterization. To me, that’s like saying that the Catholics are a state within…