The 2016 Coup Attempt Revisited: Türkiye’s Transformation and Its Regional Impact

Türkiye is a key regional player in West Asia, Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, Central Asia, and East Africa. Its geographical position makes it a unique bridge between Europe and Asia. What happens in Türkiye reverberates throughout the region. Yet it remains a deeply misunderstood country.

One reason for this misunderstanding is that its power structure has been in constant flux since the founding of the Republic. This is not unique to Türkiye—governments everywhere evolve, and sometimes radically.

The U.S. transformed its republic through the Civil War and later through the New Deal. Russia transitioned from tsarist autocracy to Soviet communism to post-Soviet authoritarianism. France is now in its Fifth Republic. Germany has shifted through multiple systems of governance. China evolved from imperial rule to communism, and now blends authoritarianism with capitalism.

Türkiye’s own power structure is undergoing transformation. That is the thesis of Selim Koru in his book New Turkey and the Far Right. According to him, Erdoğan is working to dismantle the Kemalist Republic to establish a new system of governance. This change also affects Türkiye’s perceived role in the Middle East and its relationships with other countries—especially the U.S.

Recently, the PKK—the Kurdish nationalist guerrilla group designated as a terrorist organization by both Türkiye and the West—has begun laying down arms after 40 years of conflict. This follows a relentless military campaign by the Turkish government, but more crucially, it comes after the fall of Assad and the establishment of a new, U.S.- and Türkiye-aligned government in Syria.

The PKK is more than a CIA pawn. Its founder, Abdullah Öcalan, proposed the concept of “democratic confederalism,” which deserves consideration. But he has been jailed since 1999, and the CIA has used the movement as a proxy against both Türkiye and Assad. Now, with the Syrian Democratic Forces—essentially the PKK in Syria—being asked to integrate into Syria’s new national army, the broader PKK structure appears to be disarming.

This development alone merits analysis, but the focus here is its signal: the renewal of U.S.-Türkiye relations. Since the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, ties had been strained. The unresolved issue of the F-35 fighter jet sale to Ankara—linked to Türkiye’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system—exemplifies the tension.

Now, with Trump and Erdoğan calling each other “friends,” the renewed alliance raises a broader question: Is the U.S. considering Türkiye, not Israel, as its future hegemonic ally in the Middle East?

This becomes more plausible if we consider that the U.S. itself may be undergoing a political redefinition. J.D. Vance recently delivered a speech at the Claremont Institute—a California think tank he considers formative—in which he challenged the foundational ideals of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. He dismissed the notion that the country is based on a shared creed, arguing instead for unity rooted in ancestry and land.

This is a fundamental change in how the nation is defined. Such a fundamental change seems to be the aim of Erdoğan and his movement, a central tenet of which has been rewriting the Turkish constitution, especially the opening points, which define Türkiye as a Kemalist, secular republic.

The trend that both the U.S. under the Trump administration and Türkiye are following toward government iteration is not exclusive; it appears to be part of an international shift toward single-party political structures with a powerful figure at the helm. This is the case in Russia, China, India, and others.

In Türkiye, this trend crystallized after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt—though not as many expected. Erdoğan’s largely civilian government had to integrate elements of the secular military elite, resulting in a hybrid civilian-military regime. This had a major consequence: the ruling AKP, Erdoğan’s party, began reviving and paying homage to Mustafa Kemal and Kemalist principles. The goal of dismantling the Kemalist order may have been delayed in the short to medium term for political survival, but the long-term objective might remain unchanged.

The July 15, 2016 Coup Attempt

The coup was real—despite claims that Erdoğan staged it (a theory mostly rooted in personal opposition to him). It was, however, unlikely to succeed. The real questions are when the President and his administration learned of it, and whether they allowed it to unfold as a pretext to eliminate an internal threat.

That threat was Fethullah Gülen’s movement—allegedly supported by the CIA—and defined by Turkish officials as operating as a “state within a state.” To understand the coup, we must understand the deeper shift it triggered in Türkiye’s power structure.

The term “deep state” originally described the post-Atatürk Turkish power structure. After Atatürk’s death, a military junta emerged, committed to preserving a secular, Kemalist republic. While political parties were allowed from the mid-20th century, they had to play by the junta’s rules. If a party deviated, the military would intervene via coups.

This happened several times—most notably in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997. The 1997 coup is a good example of the dynamics that led to these coups, as it deposed Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Welfare Party, which was based on Islamic values.

Since the foundation of the Republic, Atatürk had waged a war against the Islamic identity of the Turkish people, seeking to replace it with a national identity. This created social tension, given that Türkiye is a Muslim-majority country—a tension still felt today.

Erdoğan’s rise to power was founded on unprecedented popular support based on upholding the Islamic identity of the Turkish people. It’s difficult to understand why without noting that traditional political parties in Türkiye—including the CHP (Atatürk’s People’s Republican Party)—were not founded in grassroots social movements, but rather by Turkish elites in parliament. Erdoğan’s AKP, inheriting the Welfare Party legacy, changed that.

The rise of Erdoğan’s AKP in politics came through an alliance with another organization that did not seek political office but built power through education, media, business, and bureaucratic appointments: Fethullah Gülen’s movement. This alliance helped counterbalance the Kemalist military’s power.

Leading up to the coup, three actors held real power: the AKP, Gülenists, and elements of the Kemalist military. Other actors either coalesced around these three or lacked influence.

Now comes the controversial part. The claim—impossible to document conclusively—is that the Gülenist movement was funded and guided by the CIA. Gülen was connected in the 1960s to a U.S.-backed Turkish “Anti-Communist League” before becoming a state preacher. His meteoric rise to a near cult-like empire spanning the Turkic states, the Balkans, and Africa is difficult to explain without some form of state support—the kind Türkiye could not provide at the time.

The Gülenist movement’s ideology is a mix of Western philosophical principles with Islamic terminology and favors neoliberal capitalism. It promotes the West as a societal model. It’s easy to see how expanding this ideology through schools, universities, and media in Muslim-majority countries—or countries with significant Muslim populations, like South Africa—would be a clever CIA strategy to counter alternative Islamist narratives less favorable to U.S. interests. Gülen’s U.S.-based schools (over 100 at one point) and lobbying activities support this hypothesis.

The CIA’s interest was clear: keep Türkiye aligned with U.S. interests. The military was nationalistic and wary of foreign influence, while Islamist actors like Erdoğan looked East as well as West. That was seen as a threat.

This theory is widely accepted among Turkish intellectuals, politicians, and even the Russian government. The U.S.’s protection of Gülen since 1999, its refusal to extradite him, and its unwillingness to label his movement a terrorist group all add weight to the claim.

The Turkish government has claimed U.S. involvement in the 2016 coup attempt through Gülen. The Turkish press reported that CIA-linked personnel, such as Henri J. Barkey, conducted secret meetings the night of the coup. The U.S., of course, denied this—but it would not have been the first time it meddled in Turkish politics.

Some argue the CIA was not actually linked to the coup—in fact, that they did not expect it. Common wisdom held that, after Erdoğan had conducted extensive purges in the military and judiciary, his party was stronger than ever, and the military would not risk it. The coup was solely the action of Gülenists who felt cornered after years of conflict with the AKP. But if the CIA did not know or approve of it, then it created the conditions for it to happen.

The confrontation between the AKP and Gülen’s movement began around the time of the so-called “Arab Spring.” The Western narrative says that once they had purged much of the secular elite from the judiciary and military, they turned against each other. It’s true that they had very different ideologies from the start—it was a marriage of convenience (it is well known that Gülen and Erdoğan disliked each other)—but the reason becomes clearer when considering Gülen’s CIA links.

The fight began during the Arab Spring and the 2013 Kurdish Peace Process. In both cases, Türkiye’s position ran counter to U.S. interests. Achieving peace with the PKK would have neutralized an important U.S. proxy in the region, and Erdoğan supported Islamist organizations in Tunisia, Libya, and most importantly, Egypt. He tried to export the AKP’s model of an Islamic-political organization. The agenda was to reshape the Middle East under Turkish influence, according to then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s vision, explained in 2011 at a “Turkey Investor Conference: The Road to 2023” organized by Goldman Sachs.

This was not in the interest of the U.S.—nor of Israel—because it excluded Israel and positioned Türkiye as the hegemonic power. In February 2012, a prosecutor accused Hakan Fidan, then head of Turkish intelligence, of having ties to the PKK and ISIS and summoned him to court. Erdoğan objected and told him not to go. This was the beginning of a war involving legal cases, corruption charges, and arrests of powerful pro-government figures (including Erdoğan’s son), street protests, and the closure of institutions.

It climaxed with the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. Gülenist military officers, calling themselves the “Peace at Home Council,” attempted to seize power. They bombed parliament and tried to kidnap Erdoğan. Thousands of citizens responded to Erdoğan’s televised call to resist. Crucially, the Kemalist military factions did not join.

Why? Some speculate a last-minute deal was made: Erdoğan would share part of the government with the army, especially the defense ministry and the intelligence services, and would not go against Kemalist principles—meaning, he would not attempt to change the constitution’s declaration of Türkiye as a secular republic based on Kemalist values.

After the Coup

Following the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt, Erdoğan initiated mass purges of Gülenist elements from the military and bureaucracy. Simultaneously, he rehabilitated secular-nationalist officers previously sidelined in the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials—trials now viewed as Gülenist ploys. Since 2018, the defense ministry has been led by generals, not politicians.

Erdoğan also revived public displays of respect for Atatürk and Kemalism—appealing to nationalist, secular, and far-right Islamist audiences alike.

The result is a hybrid regime: a fused civilian-military state, combining Kemalist and Islamist elements under Erdoğan’s leadership. This has consolidated his power, even if it meant ideological compromise.

Türkiye’s post-coup relationship with the U.S. soured. Washington refused to extradite Gülen or label his group as a terrorist organization. U.S. liberals disapproved of Türkiye’s new political system. Middle East interests diverged.

But things may be changing. Gülen died in 2024. Trump’s second term appears to favor centralized power. And with Assad gone, U.S.-Türkiye interests are converging again.

Only one obstacle remains: Israel.