US officials say they need to see clear evidence of the cleric’s involvement.
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The U.S. will not take any legal action on Fetullah Terror Organization’s (FETO) leader Fetullah Gulen’s extradition request by Turkey until evidence is found, State Department said Tuesday.
Gulen is involved in the organization of the July 15 military coup attempt in Turkey.
Western allies worry President Tayyip Erdogan, already accused by opponents of creeping authoritarianism, is using the crackdown to target dissent, testing relations with a key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partner in the war on Islamic State.
More than 5,000 civil servants have been dismissed and nearly 80,000 others suspended, he said in an interview with TRT public television.
He also said 4,262 companies and institutions with links to Gulen had been shut.
Bozdag said in a series of messages on Twitter that the move was “not an amnesty” and the convicts were not being pardoned but released on parole.
Gulen has denied the allegations.
President Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to choke off businesses linked to US -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for the July 15 coup attempt, describing his schools, firms and charities as “nests of terrorism”. The “supervised release” excludes those convicted of terrorism, murder, violent or sexual crimes.
Those to be set free include inmates who displayed good behavior and who have two years or less to serve of their prison terms.
Following the recent face-to-face meeting between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, senior White House officials told CNN they were “encouraged” that the two countries are “mending fences” after November’s fly over incident.
Erdogan has demanded that the United States immediately extradite the 75-year-old imam from his home in Pennsylvania to Turkey.
US Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Ankara next week, the White House announced, in the highest ranking visit to Turkey by any Western official since the coup.
Despite the “affinity”, Erdogan has been publicly at odds with the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, though he has since also criticized current Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who overthrew Morsi in a 2013 coup. Turkey enacted a three-month state of emergency on July 21, which allows the cabinet to rule by decree.
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“Prisons were already over capacity before they arrested thousands of others linked to Gulen”, Ali Suat Ertosun, former head of Turkish prisons, said by phone.
