U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim during a visit to Turkey later this month, the White House said on Saturday.
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Biden will also visit Riga, Latvia and Stockholm, Sweden on his August 22-25 tour.
Turkey nearly immediately increased pressure for the extradition from the United States of Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan who runs an influential network of global schools outside Turkey.
The trip comes at a time of strained relations between Ankara and Washington over demands that the US turn over an Islamic cleric blamed for organizing the coup attempt.
In Washington, The White House confirmed that Biden will travel to Turkey on August 24.
Yildirim said that 76,597 staff had been suspended and 4,897 dismissed in the aftermath of the coup attempt.
Turkish prosecutors have formally requested the USA government for the temporary arrest of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, over his alleged involvement in the attempted coup on July 15, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Gulen said on Friday he would only hand himself over to Turkish authorities if an independent worldwide investigative body first found him guilty. More than 1 million flag-waving Turks gathered to mark the end of nightly anti-coup demonstrations since the July 15 attempt.
It said one of the officers was accused of commanding soldiers to open fire on protesters on Istanbul’s Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul and the other of ordering a raid on the state broadcaster TRT on the night of the coup.
More than 35,000 people have been detained, of which 17,000 have been placed under formal arrest, since the July 15 putsch in which more than 240 people were killed, according to Turkish authorities.
Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic, in a statement, said the comments by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein were unacceptable.
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The scope of the crackdown now appears to be even worrying some in the ruling party. Turkish officials counter they are confronting an major internal threat.
