The death of Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen will likely improve Washington’s relations with Ankara, which had demanded his extradition over accusations he masterminded the 2016 coup attempt. The request for Gülen’s extradition was one of the largest challenges in relations between the US and its key NATO ally, Turkey.
Ömer Özkizilcik, an Ankara-based non-residential fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the argument over his extradition was a source of distrust for Turkey, which believed that the US keeping him in the country was evidence that Washington was behind the putsch.
“This will most likely open the way for the new administration, whether it will be [US Vice President Kamala] Harris or [former US President Donald] Trump, to restart and rekindle the Turkish-American relations after the American election results,” he said.
Suspicions of Gülen’s involvement in the putsch are widespread across the political spectrum in Turkey, and some of his strongest critics are also opposed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Yusuf Can, an analyst at the Wilson Center’s Middle East program, agreed that pressure on ties between Turkey and the US could decrease due to Gülen’s passing.
“The impact of Gülen’s death is multifaceted. On the one hand, his death might ease tensions around his extradition, which has been a significant issue between Turkey and the US,” Can said.
Turkey’s state news agency reported last year that the Turkish justice minister said there were 256 extradition requests for people in the US that Ankara believes are members of Gülen’s network and 483 in the European Union.
Özkizilcik warned that, despite Gülen’s death, there would still be diplomatic disagreements over the handling of those suspected of being his followers.
According to Özkizilcik, there would be internal disputes within Gülen’s network following his death, possibly weakening the group, and Ankara could use this time to try to get more of his followers and those suspected of being part of the coup attempt back to Turkey.
“They will definitely still be a topic, but these people will not be as pressuring and as high priority… as Gülen himself was,” he said, adding that if there is an improvement in relations between the US and Turkey, extradition requests will no longer harm those ties.
“This topic will remain. It will not go away, but it will not be as public as it was before. It will not be as pressuring as it was before, and it will be done more behind closed doors on a bureaucratic level rather than politically and in the public.”
Can agreed that problems would remain between the two countries given that people linked to Gülen’s network were still in the US despite Turkey’s desire for extradition, but the prominence of the issue would likely decline.
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He stated that while Ankara would continue to seek people’s extradition, this issue would likely be used as leverage during negotiations, especially in cases where the US needs Turkey’s cooperation.
On Monday, Kenya said it had accepted an extradition request from Turkey for four Turkish refugees, with some reports suggesting they had connections to the Gülen network.
The government stated that it was assured these refugees would be treated in line with international law.
Three days earlier, Amnesty International said it was alarmed and concerned about what it referred to as the individuals’ “abductions” and that the incident broke international refugee law.
The UNHCR told the AFP news agency that Kenya should “abide by their international legal obligations and, in particular, to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which protects asylum-seekers and refugees from any measure that could lead to their removal to a place where their life or freedom would be threatened.”
Özkizilcik said that Turkey could increase the number of such operations as Gülen’s network potentially weakens following his death. However, he did not expect these attempts to happen in the US or Europe.
Can argued that the UN’s comments would not likely carry much weight for Ankara or substantially impact its policies. This is partly because of the international organization’s waning influence on the global stage.
“The AKP government has historically been dismissive of international criticism unless it leads to tangible negative consequences,” he said.
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