Turkish envoy urges U.S. to search cleric Gulen’s communications

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. authorities should search through any intercepted communications of Fethullah Gulen to seek evidence backing Turkey’s accusation that the U.S.-based Muslim cleric orchestrated last year’s failed coup, Turkey’s envoy to Washington said on Friday.

In an interview with Reuters almost a year after the coup attempt, Ambassador Serdar Kilic expressed frustration over the halting U.S. response to its request for Gulen’s extradition and urged Washington to use its data-collection capabilities to help prove Ankara’s accusations against him.

“They should help us in this regard. We don’t have national intelligence authority in the United States,” he said at the Turkish embassy.

President Donald Trump’s administration is taking Turkey’s extradition request “more seriously” than Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, Kilic told a news conference later on Friday, but he did not elaborate.

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