Biden sought to assuage concerns that the US was shielding Gulen.
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Biden was guided by Turkish officials around the parliament, which was bombed during the coup attempt. The Obama administration says it must follow an established judicial process and that the final decision will be up to an independent US court.
Erdogan has said that allies in the USA and Europe failed to show the government enough support following the failed takeover, which it blames on a Turkish preacher living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania for almost two decades.
Gulen has denied any involvement in the failed coup, which left more than 200 people dead. Gulner Aybet mentions the “pressing items” upon Biden’s agenda in his one-day visit to Turkey, and that involves the man now living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen.
Erdogan, who was due to meet Biden in Ankara later in the day, said Turkey would continue to provide USA officials with documents to demand the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999.
We have “no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally”, Biden said.
“I can understand how some of your countrymen feel the world didn’t respond to their existential crisis rapidly enough or with the appropriate amount of solidarity and empathy”, Biden said following a two-and-a-half hour meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The extradition demand for Gulen and Turkish perceptions of an unsympathetic Western response to the coup attempt have chilled relations between the United States and Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and partner in the US -led war on Islamic State. AP White House Correspondent Mark Smith reports.
The State Department continues to say that case should be handled by US courts and that responsibility for the dispute falls to the Turks to produce evidence of Gulen’s complicity.
The U.S. vice-president travelled to the Turkish capital Wednesday to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with Turkey.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Ankara on Wednesday, becoming the first top U.S. official to visit Turkey since the bloody coup attempt.
Biden also rejected suggestions that the US government knew about plans for a coup in advance.
“Can you imagine us being happy with another military state (in Turkey)?” The U.S. State Department said this week that documents submitted so far by Ankara constituted a formal extradition request, although not on issues related to the coup.
Maintaining strong relations with Turkey is particularly important as the U.S. and coalition countries battle ISIS.
“As per the extradition agreement between the USA and Turkey, these types of people should at least be detained, arrested and kept under surveillance”, Erdogan said. “It is totally understandable why the people of Turkey are angry”, he said.
“The United States of America did not have any fore-knowledge of what befell you on the 15th of July”, he said.
The pledges of support and friendship seemed to go some way in repairing some of the damage done to the relationship between the United States and Turkey.
For his part, Erdogan said Gulen’s extradition “as soon as possible” was Turkey’s biggest priority.
When YPG forces outside Manbij moved several miles northward over the weekend, Turkish artillery shelled them.
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Turkish authorities fired more than 2,800 judges and prosecutors on Wednesday, in the latest purge related to the coup, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.
