Washington is ‘working on’ Gulen extradition to Turkey, foreign minister says

FAN Editor

Turkey’s foreign minister told CNBC Sunday that Ankara and Washington have discussed the extradition of Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen from the United States.

Ankara has demanded Gulen’s return since the failed Turkish coup of 2016, which it accuses the cleric of orchestrating.

“Last time when they met in Buenos Aires, Trump told Erdogan that they have been working on that, but we need to see concrete steps because it’s been already two years, almost three years,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Doha Forum on Sunday.

A former ally of President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. for nearly 20 years. He denies any involvement in the coup attempt, which saw Turkish military personnel commandeer helicopters, jets and tanks, overtake parliament and seize television stations.

The case of Gulen is a primary sticking point between the NATO allies, Cavusoglu said, along with Washington’s support of Kurdish paramilitary forces in Northern Syria, which Turkey associates with the PKK, Kurdish separatists who have carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Turkish soil.

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