Erdoğan threatens Kosovo PM: You will pay


Date posted: April 1, 2018

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday lashed out at Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj for dismissing the interior minister and the secret service chief over the abduction of six Turkish nationals to Turkey, threatening that he would pay for it.

“Our National Intelligence Organization packed up and brought [to Turkey] six top level member [of the Gülen movement] in the Balkans, with an operation in Kosovo. But I am unhappy because the Kosovo prime minister has dismissed the secret service chief and the interior minister,” Erdoğan said during a party meeting in Istanbul’s Pendik district.

“I am asking: O! Prime minister of Kosovo: Under whose orders did you take such a step? Since when did you start to protect people who tried to carry out a coup against Turkey?” he added.

Asking Haradinaj if he was aware that Turkey was the second country to recognize the independence of Kosovo, Erdoğan said: “You will pay for harboring those people who tried to perpetrate a coup against Turkey.”

Erdoğan also said he was sure that Kosovars would hold Prime Minister Haradinaj accountable.

On Thursday morning Kosovo police arrested six Turkish nationals, one doctor and five educators, working at a group of schools affiliated with the faith–based Gülen movement. It was reported that they were transferred to Turkey the same day.

The arrests sparked a political crisis in Kosovo. Kosovo Prime Minister Haradinaj on Friday dismissed the interior minister and the secret service chief.

Haradinaj said on Thursday: “The entire operation — revoking their residence permits, detention, emergency deportation and the secret extradition to Turkey of the six Turkish citizens from Kosovo territory — was conducted without my knowledge and without my permission.”

President Hashim Thaci also commented on the developments: “Today we are disappointed because our relevant institutions, for reasons that remain to be clarified to the end, have failed to defend these principles related to the human rights of foreign nationals who live and work in our country. I am informed by the competent authorities after the event that six citizens were deported today to Turkey on the grounds that they did not have a residence permit in Kosovo.”

But Thaci changed his tone on Saturday and said he was informed by the intelligence service that “their arrest and deportation is related to their illegal and dangerous activity in Kosovo.”

He also hinted that he was not pleased with the dismissal of the interior minister and secret service chief.

Leutrim Syla, lawyer for the six Turkish nationals — Cihan Ozkan, Kahraman Demirez, Hasan Huseyin Gunakan, Mustafa Erdem, Osman Karakaya and Yusuf Karabina — said on Friday that his clients would most likely face torture or ill treatment and harsh punishment if they are deported to Turkey.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, on Saturday tweeted that six Turkish nationals who were arrested by Kosovar police on Thursday and apparently spirited out of the country by Turkish intelligence later in the day would face the risk of torture and abuse in Turkey.

“Beyond the complete lack of due process, the six Turks who may have been sent from Kosovo to Turkey would face severe risk of torture and abuse. Whereabouts unclear,” Roth said on his Twitter account.

 

Source: Turkish Minute , March 31, 2018


Related News

It is shame not to reopen Halki Greek Orthodox Seminary

Sometimes you need many pages to properly express a feeling or idea. Sometimes a sentence is enough to depict that dominant feeling or idea. This is the very feeling I personally have in the face of the debates concerning the reopening of Halki [Greek Orthodox] Seminary on the island of Heybeliada near İstanbul, which was closed down in 1971 by the interim regime formed in the wake of a military memorandum in Turkey. “Shame” is the only word I can find to describe this feeling.

Turkish nationals in Bangladesh living in fear

In a recent press conference, Ambassador Devrim Öztürk claimed that some Turkish nationals in Dhaka, in particular those working at the Turkish Hope School, were involved with what he called the Gülenist Terror Organisation (FETÖ). Foreign Ministry officials who spoke to the Dhaka Tribune said they saw the ambassador’s request as a violation of diplomatic norms.

Becoming a Dialogue Movement: What Can Dialogue Learn from Other Movements?

Frances Sleap Tue, 01 May 2012 Local intercultural dialogue efforts may have a real impact on the quality of the relationships of those involved. But how can dialogue have a larger-scale, more pervasive effect on our society? In a 2010 Dialogue Society discussion, Revd Donald Reeves suggested that dialogue needs to become a movement. Dr […]

Main opposition deputy head slams gov’t for targeting Hizmet Movement

Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Faruk Loğoğlu criticized government, which signaled Hizmet Movement should be included in “Red Book,” a national security document in which major threats against the nation are enumerated, on Thursday.

The gravest-ever smear

The erstwhile political Islamists — who would frequently utter the slogan “Every day is Ashura and everywhere is Karbala,” referring to the tragic incident in Islamic history when the Prophet Muhammad’s grandsons, Hasan and Husain, as well as those who accompanied them, were ambushed and slaughtered near Karbala in Iraq — apparently stick today to the formula “Every day is a lie and everywhere is a smear.”

Opposition up in arms over Erdoğan’s badmouthing of Turkish schools abroad during visit to Ethiopia

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pressing ahead with campaigning the closure of Turkish schools affiliated with the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, in African countries, causing a number of members of the opposition parties in Turkey to reacted against his move.

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

Bank Asya recovers from gov’t provocation

Turkish Cultural Center’s Meat Drive in New York

Human Rights Watch Director: This is a political purge… pure and simple!

PM threatens business, media and civic groups amid corruption woes

Turkish gov’t jails yet another woman with 25-day-old baby

Understanding shifts in Islamic interpretation in Turkey through Gulen-inspired Yamanlar High School

“There will be no Turkish Olympiad,” says Erdoğan

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News