Turkey halts activities of 370 groups with suspected 'terrorist' links

Turkey has halted the activities of 370 non-governmental groups over their alleged terrorist links following a failed coup in July.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus defended the ban on the activities of the NGOs operating across the country, which was announced by the Interior Ministry late on Friday.

“The organisations are not shut down, they are being suspended. There is strong evidence that they are linked to terrorist organisations,” Kurtulmus said.

“Turkey has to fight terrorism on so many different fronts. We are trying to clear the state institutions from Gulenists. At the same time we are fighting against Kurdish militants and Islamic State,” Kurtulmus told reporters on Saturday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan calls the exiled cleric’s network the “Gulenist Terror Organisation” and says the unprecedented crackdown is crucial to rid state institutions of infiltrators seeking to topple the government.

Of the 370 associations affected by Friday’s ban, 153 were allegedly linked to the Gulen movement, 190 to the Kurdish militant group PKK, 19 to the far-leftist militant group DHKP-C, and eight to Islamic State, the interior ministry said.

It added that investigations into the groups were continuing and pledged “determination to fight all kinds of structures, groups and institutions with links to terror organisations.”