Turkish ambassador leads an unrealistic mission: bringing a reclusive Muslim cleric before Turkish courts

Turkish Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen. (Photo: Cihan)
Turkish Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen. (Photo: Cihan)


Date posted: October 15, 2016

Tracy Wilkinson

Serdar Kilic has one of the hardest jobs in Washington. Lobbying members of Congress, making speeches, handing out flash drives of supposed evidence, Turkey’s ambassador here is leading what appears to be a quixotic mission: bringing a reclusive Muslim cleric, holed up in rural Pennsylvania, before Turkish courts.

Turkey’s government has asked the Obama administration to extradite Fethullah Gulen, insisting he masterminded the July 15 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that left more than 250 people dead.


Erdogan’s government considers Gulen a terrorist and his movement a terrorist organization. The U.S. government does not.


The wide-ranging conspiratorial plot that Turkish officials accuse Gulen of directing is breathtaking. It’s also a tough sell.

“It’s like trying to explain a surrealistic Fellini movie,” Kilic said in an interview. “This is something very difficult for American people to understand.”

Turkey is a key NATO ally, is host to a major U.S. Air Force base and plays a critical role in the battle against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Washington is keenly interested in what happens there.

Erdogan’s government considers Gulen a terrorist and his movement a terrorist organization. The U.S. government does not.

And the extradition case is deepening tensions between Ankara and Washington.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has told reporters in Ankara that investigators have confiscated half-a-million digital documents, including computer and smartphone records. The material, he said “will leave no doubt” about Gulen’s guilt.

Gulen, now 75, has lived the last 17 years in self-imposed exile at the Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, and rarely goes out. He leads what he describes as a peaceful religious, educational and cultural organization.

He has acknowledged that some of his followers may have participated in the attempted government overthrow, but he said they were not acting on his orders and that he played no role.


Although Turkey immediately blamed Gulen for the coup attempt, it took Ankara nearly six weeks to make a formal request for his extradition — and that was based on earlier alleged crimes, not for his supposed role in the coup.


“Nothing good will come out of coups,” Gulen told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on July 31. “Coups will divide, separate, disintegrate and make people the enemy of each other. This animosity will also affect future generations, just like it is in Turkey now.”

To hear Turkish authorities tell it, Turks loyal to Gulen, and trained in what critics portray as a cult-like empire of schools and mosques, have steadily, over years, infiltrated Turkish institutions and moved into positions of power.

Gulen’s followers penetrated, this version contends, the top echelons of Turkey’s military; many levels of the judiciary, intelligence services and police; financial institutions; schools across the board; newspapers and other media.

They created, the Turkish government alleges, a “parallel state” determined to undermine the Erdogan administration.

Armed with that vision, Erdogan’s government has arrested or fired more than 90,000 military officers, teachers, lawyers, journalists and others because of suspicions they supported Gulen and the failed putsch.

Mehmet Mehdi Eker, a politician from Erdogan’s party and a former Cabinet minister, was in the Turkish parliament building the night mutinous troops shelled and burned it. He played the ally card when he visited Washington last month to lobby lawmakers and others.

“Turkey and the United States are allies and friends, and in difficult times in history we would like that our friends be well-informed and realize what is happening,” Eker said in an interview at Ambassador Kilic’s residence.

Gulen’s extradition to Turkey was “our expectation” given the “rule of friendship” between the two countries, Eker argued.

Although Turkey immediately blamed Gulen for the coup attempt, it took Ankara nearly six weeks to make a formal request for his extradition — and that was based on earlier alleged crimes, not for his supposed role in the coup.

The Obama administration, which quickly condemned the coup, is formally considering the extradition request. But no decision appears imminent.

Some officials worry Gulen would not get a fair trial in Turkey, and are wary of Turkey’s claims that he is a terrorist rather than a political opponent. Many find the alleged vast conspiracy to be far-fetched.

If the Gulenist infiltration was as deep and destabilizing as the Turkish government claims, then why did no one outside Turkey notice the threat?

“That everybody missed this, that it was so Machiavellian, so stealthy, so sneaky … that would be an astonishing feat if true,” said John Hannah, an expert on Turkey who has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“It is hard to believe it is true,” said Hannah, now a senior counselor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank.

“I am willing to believe it, but I want to see actual evidence,” said Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a former defense and national security official. “The bar has to be high.”

Turkey hired attorneys to build a case against Gulen even before the abortive coup.

Robert Amsterdam, an American lawyer based in London, has investigated Gulen’s work for more than a year. Any evidence he finds would not necessarily be part of an extradition case, but it could support Turkey’s portrayal of Gulen as a crook.


If the Gulenist infiltration was as deep and destabilizing as the Turkish government claims, then why did no one outside Turkey notice the threat? “That everybody missed this, that it was so Machiavellian, so stealthy, so sneaky … that would be an astonishing feat if true,” said John Hannah, an expert on Turkey who has worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations.


Amsterdam cites the network of charter schools that Gulen’s organization purportedly establishes and finances across the United States and in other countries.

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that L.A. Unified School District authorities are considering whether to close three Los Angeles charter schools, operated by locally based Magnolia Public Schools, because they brought in teachers from Turkey. The chain has denied direct ties to Gulen.

Until recently, it was hard for Amsterdam to meet U.S. lawmakers or law enforcement to discuss Gulen. He gets more of a hearing now, but says he still struggles to make his case, insisting that Gulen’s role is both clandestine and extensive.

Times staff writer Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this report.

Source: Stars & Stripes , October 14, 2016


Related News

Kimse Yok Mu first to respond to call for Crimea

Crimea Foundation’s board member and Crimean Turks Culture and Solidarity Foundation’s director in Seydisehir, Konya, Mustafa Sarikamis said they are to provide food aid to one thousand families following the talks with Kimse Yok Mu Foundation official.

Fethullah Gulen talking about Turkey’s failed coup: Responses to Philadelphia World Affairs Council

Right now, all critical voices are silenced in Turkey and only the voice of those in power is heard. Consequently both Turkish people and outside observers are misled. The misperception about the coup continues because there is only one voice. The government interprets everything according to their calculations. They are using this event to express the antipathy they already had against Hizmet movement. The coup attempt is serving to justify their plans to persecute Hizmet movement.

PA State Rep. Margo Davidson reflects on her visit to Turkish refugees in Greece

We heard about mothers being imprisoned right after birth in Turkey. And it’s just really a horrible shame; and that they’re still being tracked by the Turkish government at this point is just really frightening. Turkey had achieved democracy, but now it’s under a single person’s rule–which is what we call a dictatorship.

The Anatolians are coming

This inclusion of the Armenian and Jewish cultures in the “Anatolian” concept is worth pondering, for it tells something about the cultural codes of some of the makers of “New Turkey” and how they differ from the codes of “old” (i.e., Kemalist) Turkey.

Ex-AK Party delegate slams persecution of Hizmet movement

There are few individuals in Turkish political history with such a long career as Haluk Özdalga. Having formerly served with the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), Özdalga joined the AK Party (the ruling Justice and Development party) with high hopes for democracy in 2007.

Portrait of an Anatolian Muslim with no schooling*

It seems like this season is a season for losing fathers. Yesterday, like many friends around me, I too lost my father. All fathers are great, but mine was different, an extraordinarily good person. He had a finger in every innovation that was brought to the village. Although he never went to school, he could speak and write in Ottoman and [modern] Turkish. He would read history books for the curious in the house.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Australian Relief Organisation runs 2017 qurban campaign

Abant Platform discusses thriving relations between Turkey and Africa

South Africa to host 14th International Festival of Language and Culture

UN and OSCE experts deplore crackdown on journalists and media outlets in Turkey

Turkey Has Stolen The Future Of A Medical Student From Uganda

AFSV Statement on Turkish Government Actions against Free Media

Tension at home hits Turkey’s brand overseas

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News