Gulen has denied any involvement in the July 15 coup attempt that killed more than 270 people.
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (R) meets with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, August 24, 2016. “We are cooperating with Turkish authorities”.
According to Earnest, efforts to extradite Gulen would be governed by “an extradition treaty that’s been on the books between the United States and Turkey for more than 30 years”.
“Having technical team from the USA on the ground is a clear sign from your side that you’re taking this seriously and attaching great importance to it”, Yıldırım told Biden.
The United States has “no, no, no, no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally”. Legal experts and activists say the purge is unlawful and accuse the government of speculatively detaining individuals. Biden should do his best to convince Erdogan that the United States does not desire to destabilize Turkey.
He said the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are considered off-shoot of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), should not spread west of Euphrates, and Turkey and the U.S are on the same page regarding this issue. At least 16,000 people have been formally arrested in connection with the coup attempt, with more than 26,000 being detained.
Dismissed personnel are accused of being linked to Fetullah Terrorist Organization.
Cultural centers, schools, associations and shops linked to Gülen’s Hizmet movement have reported insults on social networks, death threats, arson attacks on their cars and stones thrown at their premises. “This individual continues to manage a terrorist organisation from where he is”. “The [US] has to make this choice”, Erdogan said in a speech.
Even though Biden failed to offer a rapid solution to the Gulen problem, Ereli said, his visit established a “mechanism for dealing with this issue at a senior level”.
“I understand the intense feeling your government and the people of Turkey have about [Gulen]”.
Biden also rejected suggestions that the USA government knew about plans for a coup in advance.
He said that Turkey has always been a major North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and a strategic ally of the United States. But he reaffirmed the US willingness to cooperate in the case of the USA -based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen. The US Vice President is visiting Turkey in a period that may be seen as an all-time low in US-Turkish bilateral relation.
Biden and Yildirim both said they do not accept a new Kurdish entity on Turkey’s border inside Syria.
Sarikaya said Turkey expects solidarity and support from its allies but that messages of Western support came only when it was clear the coup attempt was doomed to failure.
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Before the new conference, the vice president also toured the parliament building, badly damaged by air strikes during the coup attempt, with the Speaker of Parliament Ismail Kahraman and Biden noted the psychological impact the damage has on the public.
