Erdoğan seeks extradition of ally-turned-foe, Gülen in Obama talks at Nato summit
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey will seek the extradition of his ally-turned-foe, US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, when he meets US President Barack Obama at the NATO summit on Friday, Turkish media reports said.
Erdoğan, inaugurated last week, has vowed to press his battle with Gülen and his supporters, whom he accuses of using influence within the judiciary, police and state bureaucracy to plot against him in his final year as prime minister.
On his plane traveling to Wales for the summit, Erdoğan told reporters the “parallel structure,” the expression he uses to describe Gülen supporters within the state apparatus, would be among subjects he would discuss with Obama while there.
Gülen lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. His followers revere him as an enlightened, pro-Western face of moderate Islam but secular critics say he infiltrated government ranks with religiously minded professionals.
“Deport him or give him to us,” the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily and other newspapers quoted Erdoğan as saying of Gülen. “Let him come and live in his own country if he says he hasn’t committed a crime.” Erdoğan says Gülen’s followers orchestrated a corruption probe that went public last December against his inner circle and in response the government has purged thousands of police and hundreds of judges and prosecutors.
Erdoğan signaled in April that Turkey would ask the United States to extradite Gülen. But he has acknowledged his relations with Obama have soured amid disappointment at a lack of US action over the war in neighboring Syria. Speaking on the Turkish ATV network on March 6, Erdoğan said that during a phone call with President Obama on Feb. 19, he had asked for Gülen to be extradited since he was a threat to Turkey’s national security. Erdoğan claimed that Obama had viewed this request “positively” and replied by saying, “I got the message.” However, the White House accused then-Prime Minister Erdoğan of misrepresenting the content of his phone conversation with Obama. “The response attributed to President Obama with regard to Mr. Gülen is not accurate,” the White House said in an e-mailed statement to various press organizations, including Today’s Zaman, on March 7. The statement marks a first in Turkish-American relations — a denial of the Turkish prime minister’s version of events.
Gülen is in self-imposed exile in the US, though there is no legal hurdle preventing him from returning to Turkey. Shortly after he went to the US in 2000, he was charged with establishing an illegal organization in Turkey, but he was eventually acquitted in 2008.
Erdoğan’s leadership style, from his bombastic rhetoric on Israel to his crackdown on anti-government protests last summer, has raised increasing concern among Western allies in recent years.
SOURCE: MEDIA
