No evidence by Turkey of Gulen’s role in coup

WASHINGTON, Wednesday

Turkey is conceding it has not sent any evidence to Washington linking Fethullah Gulen to the failed July 15 coup attempt, despite increasingly angry calls by Ankara for the United States to extradite the Pennsylvania-based cleric or suffer a severe downgrade in diplomatic relations.

In a statement to Foreign Policy magazine, Turkish Embassy spokesman Naci Aydan Karamanolu said evidence linking Mr Gulen to the coup “will be submitted in due time.”

He added that “it would be impossible to send so much evidence on the coup attempt just days after it happened.”

But top Turkish officials have not been similarly patient when demanding the immediate deportation of Mr Gulen, whom they call a “terrorist.”

Ahead of US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to tell the vice president that the US does not “have the right to hem and haw. You have to hand him over.”

He previously warned the White House that it had to “choose between Turkey and Gulen.”

Turkey, an important partner in the fight against the Islamic State, owns an airbase the US uses to stage airstrikes in Syria.

Turkish demands for Gulen’s extradition have also given way to a wave of anti-American charges and criticism in the Turkish press, including unsubstantiated allegations that US officials attempted to assassinate Erdogan or that the military putsch was planned by the Wilson Center, a US-based think tank.

Mr Gulen, an influential preacher and a onetime political ally of Erdogan and his AKP party, currently lives in a secluded compound in the Pocono Mountains, in northeastern Pennsylvania. He and his lawyers deny any involvement in the coup.

During his visit, Biden said that it is “totally understandable why the people of Turkey are angry,” but noted that America’s system of government has separate and independent roles for the executive and judicial branches and the president could not simply order the extradition of Gulen unilaterally.

Turkey’s admission that it hasn’t sent evidence about Gulen’s activities related to the coup may have been prompted by an op-ed written by Mr Biden in Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper.

In it, Mr Biden said the US would deport Mr Gulen if Turkey can prove that he masterminded the coup but added that US has yet to receive “any evidence from Turkey relating to the attempted coup.”