In comments on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the US is working on extraditing cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkey. Gulen has been living in the US in exile since the 1990s.
Cavusoglu claimed the efforts have been ongoing since at least the G20
summit, at which he says President Trump promised Turkish President
Erdogan that an extradition would be worked out.
The White House is disputing this,
however, saying that Trump had never committed to or promised an
extradition would happen. Officials did not say what the
administration’s position is.
Recent media reports appear to support the Turkish claims, as recently
it has been reported that Trump was telling federal law enforcement
agencies to find a legal way to extradite Gulen, believing that was the
key to improving US-Turkey relations. At the time, reports said that
many officials were unhappy with this.
Turkish FM: US Working on Extraditing Gulen
White House: Trump never promised extradition
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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