The White House asked federal law enforcement agencies to explore legal ways it could extradite an opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the U.S. in an effort to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a report Thursday.
Administration officials asked the Justice Department and the FBI to take another look at Turkey’s request for Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen’s removal and also requested information about his residency status from the Department of Homeland Security, NBC News reports.
Gulen, who is said to have a green card, has lived in Pennsylvania for two decades. 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.
Turkish and Trump administration officials have discussed forcing Gulen to move to South Africa, but the U.S. has no legal justification to make him relocate there unless he goes willingly. Trump and Erdogan have also discussed the release of Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who was sentenced earlier this year to 32 months in prison for his role in a plot to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran, the report said.
A Turkish official said the country sees “no connection” between its request for Gulen to be extradited and the investigation into Khashoggi’s murder by Saudi officials at its consulate in Istanbul last month.
“We want to see action on the end of the United States in terms of the extradition of Gulen. And we’re going to continue our investigation on behalf of the Khashoggi case,” the official told the news outlet.
Erdogan has kept up pressure on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an ally to the American president, by leaking information about Khashoggi’s death for weeks.
During a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after Khashoggi’s disappearance, Erdogan told him they wanted the U.S. to extradite Gulen.
“That was their number one ask,” a person briefed on the meeting told NBC News.
