Turkish legislators press case for Gulen extradition
A group of parliamentarians from Turkey visited Washington to try to ease tensions with the United States following a failed July 15 coup attempt.
Turkey has sent multiparty parliamentary delegations to half a dozen Western countries, including the United States, Canada and Britain, to explain the Erdogan government’s massive crackdown following a failed July 15 coup and press the US government for extradition of opposition figure Fethullah Gulen.
In Washington on Aug. 1, Taha Ozhan, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told a small audience at The Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a think tank that is close to the Turkish government, that “almost 99% of Turks think the coup was orchestrated by Gulen himself.”
Echoing the government’s line since the coup attempt, Ozhan likened the Gulenists to the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) and said they are “operating in more than 100 countries” where the Gulen movement has set up schools.
He also noted that Turkey and the United States have a treaty on extradition and asserted that under the treaty, Gulen, 75, who has lived in the rural Pennsylvania community of Saylorsburg since 1999, should be in custody while an extradition process unfolds. “Mr. Gulen should be detained and not allowed to speak to the international media,” Ozhan said.
