After Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed the reclusive cleric Fethullah for the failed military coup attempt, Gülen in a rare and brief interview with a small group of journalists on Saturday at his residence in Saylorsbug, Pennsylvania, rejected all accusations and said may be actually the uprising by the military coup was all staged by the government to indict him and his followers, noted The Gurdian.
Gülen, who leads from exile a popular movement called Hizmet and split from Erdoğan over a corruption scandal in 2013, spoke in a small prayer room, lined with woven rugs and decorated with Islamic calligraphy and leather-bound religious books. Reporters were served Turkish tea and sweet dry figs at his Pennsylvania compound, which he moved into after arriving in the US in 1999. He said he rejected all military interventions and said he had personally suffered after the coups of the 1990s.
“Now that Turkey is on the path to democracy, it cannot turn back,” said the cleric.
“I miss my homeland a lot. But there is another important factor, which is freedom. I am here, away from the political troubles in Turkey and I live with my freedom,” answered Gülen when asked if he would have returned to Turkey had the coup been successful?
Speaking in public in Istanbul on Saturday, Erdoğan called on Barack Obama to arrest Gülen and deport him to Turkey. Turkey had never turned back any extradition request for “terrorists” by its US ally, Erdoğan said, adding: “I say if we are strategic partners then you should bring about our request.”
No official extradition request had been made, according to the US secretary of state, John Kerry, who spoke to reporters in Luxembourg. “We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr Gülen,” he said. “And obviously we would invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately.”
Supporters of Gülen expressed frustration over the accusations against the leader.
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Sourced from Agencies, Featured Image Courtesy: independent.co.uk
