US may extradite Gulen to ease Turkey pressure on Saudi Arabia: Report

The White House is finding ways to extradite the US-based Turkish dissident Fethullah Gulen, an arch-rival of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a media report says.

Four sources have told NBC News that the administration of Donald Trump is looking for ways to extradite Gulen, who is accused by Ankara of having masterminded the July 2016 coup attempt against President Erdogan.

The move is said to be aimed at appeasing Erdogan and easing Turkey's pressure on Saudi Arabia over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, according to two senior US officials and two other people briefed on the requests.

Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing Gulen in an attempt to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government, the sources said.

They said the effort includes directives to the Justice Department and the FBI that officials reopen Turkey's case for his extradition, as well as a request to the Homeland Security Department for information about his legal status.

They said the White House specifically wanted details about Gulen's residency status in the US.

Gulen, a Green Card-holder, has been living in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s.

The premeditated murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 has escalated tensions in Ankara-Riyadh relations, with President Erdogan accusing the highest-ranking Saudi officials of ordering the assassination.

PressTV-Highest level of Saudi gov’t ordered Khashoggi hit: Erdogan

Turkish president says the order to kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi came from “highest levels” of the Saudi government.

The US and Turkey have been engaged in negotiations over a series of sensitive diplomatic issues over the past few months, including a deal for last month’s release of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who was imprisoned in Turkey and an agreement for joint US and Turkish military patrols in Manbij, Syria.

Amid growing international pressure on the Saudi government over the murder, the US has tried in recent weeks to appease the Ankara government over the case, convincing Erdogan to ease its pressure on Riyadh.

Read more:

• Turkey, US mutually lift sanctions on top gov't officials in sign of easing tensions

The allegations of Washington’s bid to extradite Erdogan’s arch-foe seem to be part of the same scenario. However, a Turkish official says the government does not link its concerns about the Khashoggi murder with Gulen's extradition case.

"We definitely see no connection between the two," the official said.

Saudi Arabia, after initially denying having any role in Khashoggi's disappearance, reversed course and admitted that Saudi officials were responsible for the killing.

On Thursday, the Saudi public prosecutor released the results of a long-awaited investigation, saying a team of Saudi agents who had been dispatched to Istanbul with orders to bring Khashoggi home alive had instead killed him and dismembered his body.  

Read more:

• Saudi squad involved in Khashoggi murder must be tried in Turkey: FM   

US denies Gulen extradition, Khashoggi case related

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told CBS News “the NSC has not been involved in nor aware of any discussions relating the extradition of Fethullah Gulen to the death of Jamal Khashoggi."

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert also told reporters that Gulen and the question of the Saudis are unrelated, and claimed the NBC News report has tried to "conflate the two."

Nauert said the US has received multiple requests from the Turkish government related to Gulen, and the US continues to evaluate the materials that the Turkish government presented. The case, Nauert said, is being handled out of the Justice Department.

The Alliance for Shared Values, a nonprofit umbrella of the Gulen movement, said it is "alarmed" by the report that the US administration is considering Gulen's removal.

"We are alarmed at reports that the administration is exploring the possible removal of Fethullah Gulen from the United States," the Alliance for Shared values said in a statement.

In a rare interview with NPR last year, Gulen said he would not protest if the US decided to extradite him, though he suggested doing so would harm the US' reputation.

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