President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the crackdown as necessary to oust Gulen sympathisers who, he said, had infiltrated the Government.
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The Turkish authorities have also demanded that Kyrgyzstan shut down institutions believed to be sponsored by the Gulenist movement and warned that its alleged members have plans to carry out a coup in the country, which has seen two bloody overthrows of government since 2005.
The July 15 military action blamed by Ankara on US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen has rattled Turkey’s relations with the United States, with Ankara warning Washington that ties will suffer if it fails to extradite Pennyslvania-based Gulen.
Describing his client as an “elderly, frail religious leader”, Weingarten argued that Gulen, who lives in a compound in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, has done nothing that would meet any of the legal justifications for extradition under US law and that he poses no threat. Turkey considers his movement, which runs charities, schools and businesses across the world, a terrorist organization.
Turkey’s government accuses Gulen of masterminding the botched coup that killed more than 245 people, but the cleric denies any involvement.
“Extradition is fundamentally a legal process, and we are lawyers, and we deal with evidence and we deal with due process”, he said.
Meanwhile, a U.S. citizen of Turkish origin was arrested in southern Hatay province as part of a probe into the failed coup, state-run Anadolu news agency reported Friday, quoting a local governor. Cavusoglu also alluded to a possible visit from Vice President Joe Biden.
Taha Ozhan, chairman of the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission, said during a visit to Washington this week that testimony from coup participants forms the main evidence of Gulen’s involvement.
A refusal to extradite could presage one of the lowest points in a generation in U.S. -Turkey relations, said Steven Cook, an expert on Turkish politics with the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank in Washington D.C.
Ozhan said “many documents have been sent” and “we are doing our homework in Turkey” where “prosecutors are forming a case”.
“We will cut off all their business links, all the revenues of Gulen-linked businesses”, Erdogan added in a speech to the heads of chambers of commerce in Ankara.
“He’s still a threat and we don’t want to have another tsunami caused by July 15”, Ozhan said.
Worldwide advocacy groups have loudly criticized the crackdown, which Human Rights Watch recently described as “an affront to democracy”.
ISTANBUL (AP) Turkey’s state news agency says high-level government and military officials are meeting at a security summit held at the prime minister’s residence in Ankara. Those who “financed the shooters” would be treated like the coup plotters themselves, he said.
Turkey is also pressing Kazakhstan over its schools linked to Gulen, with Erdogan expressing the hope on Friday that the Central Asian country would take steps to close them.
Fetullah Gulen is Turkey’s most wanted man, at least according to its President Tayyip Rejep Erdogan.
The Kazakh leader said 90,000 students were registered at those schools.
“I came here to declare that I am standing by Erdogan”, Nazarbayev said. “This would not be in our interest”. On Friday, a leaked internal memorandum emerged, suggesting a new purge of suspected Gulenists within Erdogan’s ruling party.
Twelve out of 14 journalist suspects from the Zaman daily were remanded in custody, Anadolu reported on Friday, less than a week after six others were arrested. It didn’t specify when or where she was arrested.
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Germany’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the report, without giving further details.
