Relations with the European Union – which Turkey has sought to join since the 1963 – could prove even more fraught with top officials in Brussels angering Ankara by raising concerns over the magnitude of the post-coup purge.
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Thursday to cut off the revenues of businesses linked to the USA -based Turkish cleric he blames for masterminding a failed coup, describing his schools, companies and charities as “nests of terrorism”.
Gulen has denied involvement or prior knowledge of the coup attempt.Ankara has not yet made a formal extradition request, but the arrest warrant could be the prelude.
Turkey’s government has repeatedly said the deadly coup attempt, which martyred at least 238 people and injured almost 2,200 others, was organized by the followers of USA -based preacher Fetullah Gulen.
Since the coup attempt, Turkey has cracked down heavily on those the government believes is responsible, including supporters of the cleric Gulen.
Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, has denied any involvement in the coup.
More than 230 people were killed, excluding soldiers who were involved in the coup attempt.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said Thursday that an Istanbul-based court issued the warrant for “ordering the July 15 coup attempt”.
Separately, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported a German woman had been arrested in Turkey on suspicion of belonging to the Gulen movement. In addition to cultural differences, in making his case and in urging the USA to act, Erdogan points to examples where Turkey complied without delay to Western requests for extradition.
“The issuance of an arrest warrant from a Turkish court changes nothing about my status or my views”, Gulen said. “Every business, every charity, every association of this organization is a terrorist organization”.
Since the coup attempt, almost 70,000 people have been suspended or dismissed from jobs in the fields of civil service, judiciary, education, health care, the military and the media.
But Turkey is still for Washington an “essential partner in the Middle East” and will do all it can to satisfy Ankara “even if they are not going to cede on Gulen”, said Jean Marcou, Turkey expert at Sciences Po in Grenoble. We will cut off all business links, all revenues of Gulen-linked business.
“The EU should not, obviously, pursue the road of ending the accession talks with Turkey, but we will have to if Turkey keeps sliding into semi-authoritarianism”, the official said.
Turkey is also pressing its allies to crack down on Gulen-linked schools and charities and has asked Kazakhstan to shut down schools which it says are associated with the movement.
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Celik said Turkey’s intelligence services had been investigating the group accused of instigating the coup since 2013.
