Turkey’s EU Minister criticized Thursday the Western allies for following an unfair narrative on the deadly July 15 coup attempt.
Advertisement
Talks on the issue and Turkey’s possible accession to the European Union have been strained amid a continuing crackdown following the failed attempt to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It set up the European Convention on Human Rights, and cases relating to the convention are brought before the European Court of Human Rights.
Gulen has denied all accusations and claims to have had nothing to do with the coup attempt. “Whether they do this under the current conditions we will have to wait and see”, he told the Rheinische Post.
“They are in the process of evaluating these documents”, he said, without giving any details on the files. The Turkish government accuses Gulen of being behind a failed coup last month that left more than 270 people dead.
Gulen condemned the Turkish judiciary, saying it lacked independence. “The actors inside acted out a scenario for a coup written from the outside”, Erdogan said.
“You have to be blind and deaf not to understand that he is behind all of this”, Erdogan said in an interview with Mexican television, describing any delay in extradition as “intolerable”.
“In addition to needing substantial evidence, I think the USA will require some firm diplomatic assurances regarding Turkey’s willingness to respect due process and basic principles of human rights during any prosecution. We will keep on fighting in a determined way”, he said in a speech at the presidential palace in Ankara. The U.S., Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Taiwan, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Bahamas sill have the death sentence. “A coup was staged against the democracy in Turkey and now we have 238 martyrs”. “I think the USA will try to stand up to Turkey in the Gulen affair, but it will do so gently and quietly”. However, Erdogan has not made any evidence pointing to Gulen public, arousing suspicions that Gulen was not the culprit and conspiracy theories that Erdogan may have planned the coup himself as a way to consolidate power.
A delegation of Turkish parliamentarians is in the US for meetings with the Justice Department, to ask that they hand Gulen over.
Turkish authorities sent a new package of documents to the American authorities for Gulen’s extradition, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said.
Another participant of the group, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Erzurum lawmaker Kamil Aydin said the US side was much more serious about the case and promised that they would speed up the process for Gulen’s extradition.
“We have read concerns from Turkey that Mr. Gulen, this elderly, frail religious leader, is going to flee to another country”, said Steptoe & Johnson LLP attorney Reid Weingarten on Friday, calling such allegations “absurd”.
Advertisement
Under Turkey’s three-month state of emergency, imposed after the July 15 coup attempt, suspects can be held by police for five days without access to a lawyer and for a total of 30 days without being charged.
