Just days after Kosovo’s parliament voted to investigate the renditions of six Turkish nationals by Turkish agents, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has vowed to pursue a global manhunt for alleged foot soldiers of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Sunni cleric whom Erdogan's government blames for the failed July 2016 coup attempt.

Speaking at an April 7 rally in the western province of Denizli, Erdogan declared that Turkey has so far snatched some 80 members of the so-called Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO) and brought them back to Turkey. “We will chase them no matter where they flee,” he assured members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Erdogan reminded his audience about the recent operation in Kosovo, in which teachers affiliated with Gulen-run schools and a medical doctor linked to the Gulenist movement were extracted by members of Turkey’s national spy agency, MIT, and flown to Turkey in a private jet. “As you know, we captured six senior members of FETO,” Erdogan boasted. “We snared them in Kosovo and brought them home.” 

The forced repatriations on March 29 sparked an uproar in the tiny majority-Muslim Balkan state. Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj claimed that he had not been informed of the affair and sacked his interior minister and secret services chief for keeping him in the dark. Haradinaj has since railed against Turkish meddling amid a strong backlash from opposition members of parliament, civil society and the media against Ankara's actions.