Turkey confident US will extradite Gulen

Baku, Azerbaijan, July 28 Trend: Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has expressed confidence that the US won’t reject Ankara’s request to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Haber7 newspaper reported July 28. He pointed out that Turkey and the US are strategic partners. The prime minister said he doesn’t believe that the US will support the leader of the terrorist group. Earlier, Turkish presidential administration told Trend that Ankara will do its best to extradite Fethullah Gulen, who is considered 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 fight against Gulen’s movement still remains one of Turkey’s main priorities," the administration said. The administration also stressed that if the US 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. 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.