“The cleric has denounced the warrant, and in a statement said, “…
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Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US state of Pennsylvania, strongly denies any involvement in the attempted coup.
“Extradition is fundamentally a legal process, and we are lawyers, and we deal with evidence and we deal with due process”, he said.
Meanwhile, two members of Turkey’s top constitutional court were dismissed from the profession after they were arrested over alleged involvement in the coup attempt, Anadolu said.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev (R) review a guard of honour during a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, August 5, 2016.
President Erdogan’s ultimatum comes in the context of weakened relations between Turkey and the European Union following the 15 July failed coup. Turkey accused him of being the mastermind the coup attempt by renegade officers in the Turkish military, and wants him extradited to Turkey.
On Thursday, a court in Istanbul court issued a decision on Gulen’s arrest in absentia on charges of the Turkish coup attempt.
The Turkish authorities had already seized a bank, taken over or closed several media companies, and detained businessmen on allegations of funding the cleric’s movement ahead of the failed coup attempt.
But Erdogan is continuing his relentless attacks against Gulen, vowing to go after the cleric’s business and social networks, describing his schools, firms and charities as “nests of terrorism” and vowing no mercy in rooting them out.
Open claims of having supported Gulen, who runs a chain of Islamic charter schools in the United States, are part of Erdogan’s campaign to rally opposition to Gulen. We will cut off all business links, all revenues of Gulen-linked business.
“I can’t say definitively at this point that a formal request was made”, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said last week.
“In the same way that we do not pardon those who fire the bullet, we will not forgive those who financed the bullet”, Erdogan added.
Gulen’s influence in Turkey goes back to the premierships of Bulent Ecevit in the 1970s and he was a strong presence in Turkish politics before anyone had even heard of Erdogan.
But Erdogan said Thursday that the “virus” of Gulen’s influence had spread everywhere in Turkey and must be “cleaned up”.
“It is our responsibility to warn countries that have (Gulen-linked) schools”, Eker said.
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Jagland’s organisation monitors human rights compliance among the Council’s 47 members, including Turkey.
