Ankara insists on extradition of Gulen

/By Azernews/

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu sharply criticized the U.S. position regarding extradition of Fethullah Gulen, who is involved in the military coup attempt.

Also, Cavusoglu considered incompetent the statement of the head of the Central Command of the U.S. Armed Forces, General Joseph Votela that the Turkish generals are "friends of the United States", reported the Turkish newspaper Milliyet on Friday.

If the United States believes that only the arrested generals were fighting against the terrorist organization "Islamic State", they are completely mistaken.

Earlier, Turkish Presidential administration told Trend that Ankara will do its best to extradite Gulen, whom it considers to be the organizer of the coup attempt.

According to the administration, the coup attempt shows that Turkey was facing the threat of a terrorist attack.

The administration also stressed that if the U.S. is a strategic partner of Turkey, it should extradite Gulen to Turkey.

The administration added that the extradition of Gulen will greatly weaken the terrorist organization, which is hostile to the interests of the Turkish people.

"The U.S. continues to study the documents sent by Ankara regarding Gulen's extradition, since this is a legal process and needs to be conducted in accordance with extradition agreement," responded the State Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau, RIA Novosti reports.

In turn, Fetullah Gulen called on the U.S. authorities not to extradite him to Turkey.

On July 15 evening, Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them.

However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the death toll as a result of the military coup attempt stood at 246 people excluding the coup plotters and over 2,000 people were wounded.

Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.