The United States is assessing new documents submitted by Turkey in a bid for the extradition of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara accuses of ordering the July 15 coup attempt aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a State Department spokesman announced Thursday.
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Gulen has denied any responsibility for or prior knowledge of the attempted coup.
The aftermath of the coup that aimed to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has prompted a drastic sharpening in Turkish rhetoric toward the European Union and United States, with Ankara saying it feels let down by an apparent lack of solidarity. He declined to discuss Turkey’s evidence that Gulen was involved in the coup attempt. The Turkish government characterizes the movement of Fethullah Gulen, who lives.
On Thursday, a court in Istanbul court issued a decision on Gulen’s arrest in absentia on charges of the Turkish coup attempt.
“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”. The U.S. government has asked for evidence of the cleric’s involvement in the coup and has said the extradition process must be allowed to take its course.
Gulen’s statement comes after the court issued a warrant against him for allegedly “giving instructions” for the coup.
More than 60,000 in the military, judiciary, civil service and education have been detained, suspended or placed under investigation in Turkey since the coup but until this week sport had seemingly remained clear of any involvement. Ankara says Fethullah Gulen, an Islamist opposition figure permanently resident in the United States, and FETO backers were behind it. FETO is an acronym widely used in Turkey in relation to different groups associated with Gulen.
“At the moment, those captured are just the tip of the iceberg, others continue working. There is no doubt a pillar of this organisation is the business world”, Erdogan said on Thursday. “We are determined to totally cut off all business links of this organization, which has blood on its hands”.
“We subsequently received more documents”.
The U.S. Justice Department is the main agency poring over the documents to see whether they amount to a formal extradition request for Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. “In Africa, we know that they work as nurseries (for terror) and we want to warn them”.
He spoke of “signs that are unmistakable” that Turkey is moving toward a dictatorship under Erdogan, saying the country’s present democratic standards are “by far not enough to justify membership” in the EU.
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Erdogan has said there are 33 Gulen-run schools in the Central Asian republic.
