Turkey: No extraditions to US until Gulen handed over

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to stop extraditing suspects to the US if Washington continues to refuse to hand over alleged coup-plotter Fethullah Gulen to Turkish authorities.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

11 January, 2018

Fethullah Gulen is accused of plotting a coup attempt against Ankara in 2016 [AFP]

Turkey will cease to hand over suspects to the US if Washington does not extradite the cleric Ankara blames for orchestrating a failed 2016 military coup, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Thursday.

"We have given the United States 12 terrorists so far, but they have not given us back the one we want. They made up excuses from thin air," Erdogan told local administrators at a conference in his presidential palace in Ankara, Reuters reported.

"If you're not giving him [Fethullah Gulen] to us, then excuse us, but from now on whenever you ask us for another terrorist, for as long as I remain in office, you will not get them," he said.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims Gulen masterminded the 2016 attempted coup, in which more than 240 people, many of them unarmed civilians, were killed by rogue soldiers.

The Turkish government issued warrants for the detention of 70 military officers suspected of links to Gulen.

Earlier this month, prosecutors in the central Turkish province of Konya issued warrants against 58 officers still on active duty as well as 12 officers who were previously sacked from the armed forces.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, has denied the charges and condemned the coup and subsequent "witch hunt".

Since the failed coup, more than 50,000 people, including civil servants and security personnel, have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 suspended or dismissed from their jobs under state of emergency rule imposed and extended by Erdogan.