U.S. evaluating new Turkish documents on Gulen

/By Azernews/

By Gunay Hasanova

The United States are  evaluating new documents sent by Turkey to push for the extradition of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, the alleged mastermind of the country's recent failed coup attempt, a State Department spokesman said on August 4, Hurriyet Daily News reported

"The Turkish authorities made several deliveries of documents to U.S. and we are in the process of going through those documents," spokesman Mark Toner told a daily news briefing.

Toner said the first batch "did not, we believe, constitute a formal extradition request."

 "We subsequently received more documents. We're looking through them ... and I don't think they have reached that determination yet,” he added.

The U.S. Justice Department is the main agency poring over the documents to see whether they amount to a formal extradition request for Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Turkish officials, including Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, have warned that ties with the United States will be affected if it fails to extradite Gulen.

Previously, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that "Turkey is disappointed by the lack of support from the Obama administration regarding the issue of extradition of Gulen”.

The President's Administration of Turkey also noted that the extradition of Gulen would strongly weaken the terrorist organization, which is hostile to the interests of the Turkish people.

The NATO member plays an important role in the U.S-led fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). However, Washington has said Ankara must provide clear evidence of Gulen's involvement in the failed military coup attempt before any extradition process can move forward.

Gulen has denied plotting against Turkey and has condemned the coup attempt, calling on U.S. authorities not to extradite him to Turkey.

Toner said the United States had offered to help Turkey with investigating the coup attempt. He did not say whether Turkey had responded to the offer.

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.