Turkey’s foreign minister claimed Sunday that President Trump is moving to extradite an opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the U.S.
“In Argentina, Trump told Erdogan they were working on extraditing [Turkish cleric Fethullah] Gulen and other people,” Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday at a conference in Doha, according to NBC News.
Trump and Erdogan attended the G-20 summit two weeks ago in Argentina.
NBC News reported last month that the White House had asked federal law enforcement agencies to explore legal ways it could extradite Gulen, who is said to have a green card and has lived in Pennsylvania for two decades, in an effort to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Erdogan has accused him of being a terrorist and alleges he was behind a failed coup against the president in 2016. Gulen denies being involved in the attempted coup.
Special counsel Robert Mueller stated earlier this month in a court filing that Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, tried to cover up his ties to the Turkish government while he was working for the Trump campaign and transition team.
Part of his work on behalf of Turkey involved the government’s effort to extradite Gulen after the failed coup, the documents say.
