Gulen Slams Turkey Crackdown Before Erdogan Demands Extradition


Date posted: May 16, 2017

Selcan Hacaoglu

The exiled cleric accused by Turkey of orchestrating last year’s attempted coup charged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with seeking to silence critics, as the Turkish leader prepared to push for the preacher’s extradition in a White House meeting with Donald Trump.

Turkey’s long-standing extradition request for the former Erdogan ally and now foe, Fethullah Gulen, has complicated ties with the U.S., a relationship already strained by American support for Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria. The State Department has said U.S. courts must handle the extradition application.

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post, Gulen said Erdogan was “doing everything he can to amass power and subjugate dissent.” Turkey has fired or suspended about 150,000 people, including thousands of police officers, for links to Gulen’s movement. The cleric has denied charges he plotted the failed military putsch in July.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu kept up the pressure over Gulen in an article in Foreign Policy magazine on Monday. “Gulen who was declared by his cult as the ‘Imam of the Universe,’ has attempted to destroy democracy in Turkey,” the minister wrote. “The people of Turkey expect the U.S. authorities to take effective legal measures against this threat to our security and democracy, as an ally should.​”

Apart from the contentious issue of Gulen, Erdogan is expected to use his time with Trump in Washington to urge a rethink on Syria. Turkey considers the Kurdish YPG forces there to be a terrorist affiliate of the PKK that has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey for more than three decades. He’s unlikely to be successful, though, as the Trump administration considers the Kurds as the only force capable of quickly capturing Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa.

“President Erdogan is sick and tired of being taken for a ride by Washington during the rule of the Obama administration and wants to walk out of the Oval Office with some clear answers and decisions that will be carried out,” Ilnur Cevik, a chief adviser to Erdogan, wrote in the Daily Sabah newspaper on Tuesday.

 

Source: Bloomberg , May 16, 2017


Related News

8 detained in police raids on İzmir schools as Erdoğan’s witch hunt continues

Eight people were detained on charges of forging documents in police raids on 30 private schools established by volunteers from the faith-based Gülen movement early on Tuesday in İzmir, as part of a Justice and Development Party (AAK Party government-orchestrated operation targeting the movement.

Two women detained during visit to jailed husbands

Two women, identified as H.T. and S.S., were detained when they went through security check before visiting their imprisoned husbands at a prison in Turkey’s Edirne province.

Kimse Yok Mu head: Council of State confirms charity’s transparency

According to İsmail Cingöz, president of the charity Kimse Yok Mu, the Council of State’s unanimous annulment of a recent Cabinet decision to rescind the charity’s right to collect donations confirms its institutional transparency, accountability and reliability.

Reuters interview Gulen, he says he would not flee U.S. to avoid extradition to Turkey

Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Muslim cleric accused by Turkey of instigating last year’s failed coup, says he has no plans to flee the United States and would accept extradition if Washington agrees to a request by Ankara to hand him over.

Crimes Against Humanity in Erdogan’s Turkey

The seventh stage [of genicide] is “Preparation.” Erdogan and his supporters direct violent phrases at Hizmet participants, including “they will not have access to food and water” and “they will beg us to kill them to avoid torture.” Widespread propaganda calls Hizmet participants “assassins,” “terrorists” or pawns of foreign powers such as the CIA, Mossad or the Vatican.

Turkish ambassador draws ire as she implies Gülen-affiliated schools in Macedonia raise terrorists

Turkish Ambassador to Macedonia Tülin Betül Kara, has drawn ire following she made remarks last week that shocked the country about schools linked to the faith-based Gülen movement operating there, implying that they were raising students to be terrorists.

Latest News

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

University refuses admission to woman jailed over Gülen links

In Case You Missed It

Ban Ki-moon (UN Secretary General) sent a message to IFLC

ARO has completed its first ‘Female Homeless Shelter Project’

Turkey’s accused – Tragic stories of the purged

Gülen: Despite differences in method peace process in Kurdish issue should be supported

Turkish Schools Discussed at Johns Hopkins University

Deepening crisis

Dr. Phyllis Bernard’s views on Fethullah Gulen & Gulen Movement

Copyright 2023 Hizmet News