Turkish Navy Rear Admiral Mustafa Ugurlu, who was working at NATO’s Allied Command Transformation headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia is reported to have turned in his identification papers and disappeared on July 22.
Advertisement
He said Turkey has also asked Washington for information on a Turkish military official based in the U.S. who is reportedly seeking asylum there after being recalled, but has not yet received a response.
Earlier on Thursday, a Turkish official talking to Reuters news agency claimed that a Turkish military attache in Bosnia is also missing, but this claim was swiftly denied by Turkey’s embassy in the country.
Turkey’s government said the failed coup, which resulted in the deaths of 246 people and left almost 2,200 injured, was organised by followers of FETO.
A deadline for Turkish diplomats recalled to Ankara as part of investigations into a failed military coup expired on Thursday and legal action will be taken again those who fail to return, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday.
Mevlut Cavusoglu told NTV television on Thursday that Greek authorities had established that the navy and land forces colonels had left Greece for Italy aboard a ferry on August 6 together with their families. He said one of the colonels had a brother in the Netherlands and that both Italy and the Netherlands had been notified.
U.S. agencies such as the State Department, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Department of Homeland Security have not yet commented on Ugurlu’s case.
Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported that Putin and Erdogan concluded an agreement on preventing incidents in Turkish and Syrian airspace as well as “proposals on establishing control over the Turkish-Syrian border”. While Erdogan made no specific mention of that report, the development had the potential to strain ties between Turkey and the United States further.
Advertisement
Turkish government accuses the US-based cleric and businessman of masterminding last month’s failed coup attempt. Ankara is already pressing Washington to extradite US -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who it accuses of orchestrating the coup.
