On Friday, Turkey’s foreign and justice ministers announced that a four-person delegation from the U.S. Justice Department will be arriving on August 22 and meet with their Turkish counterparts on the following two days to discuss the extradition request.
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Turkey has launched a massive crackdown on alleged supporters of the Gulen movement, raising concerns among European governments and human rights groups.
Gulen, who has lived in the United States for years, denies any part in the putsch.
Prosecutors accuse Sukur of “being a member of an armed terror group”, a reference to the organisation of the US -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Ankara says was behind the abortive putsch.
While Hakan Sukur was reported to have fled to the United States, Selmet Sukur was detained on August 12 after being caught in a mosque in the province’s Adapazari distrcit. A court has also ordered that both men’s assets in Turkey be seized, Anadolu said.
Turkey said Friday it has received “positive signals” from the United States over its requests to extradite Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah Gulen whom Ankara accuses of ordering last month’s attempted coup.
Earlier this month, Turkish authorities issued an arrest warrant for Gulen, who argues that the blame game could be a ploy by the ruling Justice and Development Party to cement its grip on power in Turkey.
On Friday, Cavusoglu also said there were 32 “missing” diplomats in various countries following the coup attempt and that the Turkish government would also be seeking their extradition.
The Gulen case has become a major source of tension between the United States and Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally and a key part of the USA fight against the Islamic State. Washington has said it would need evidence of the cleric’s involvement, and says the regular extradition process must be allowed to take its course. Washington said the US Department of Justice, and then ultimately a court, would weigh the merits of the case once a formal request was made through the appropriate channels.
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“If a tenth of the accusations against me are established, I pledge to return to Turkey and serve the heaviest sentence”, Fethullah Gulen said in an opinion piece in French daily Le Monde.
