‘Turkey expects justice in US, not prisoner swaps’

Bloomberg

Turkey is expecting justice from the US, not a political arrangement to exchange prisoners held by each country, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said after a trip to Washington to meet with Vice President Mike Pence.
“It’s not very ethical to do political bargaining on legal issues,” Yildirim said in an interview with Bloo-mberg at the Turkish consulate in New York, in a rejection of allegations made by US and German authorities that Turkey’s holding their respective citizens captive as political leverage. “What we want isn’t a give-and-take, what we want is for justice to be served.”
The remarks came after a meeting with Pence at the White House, in which each side expressed deep frustration with developments in the other’s justice system. Turkey has jailed an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, along with several Turkish-American citizens and Turkish employees of the US diplomatic mission. In the US, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader and an executive from a Turkish state-run bank are jailed on charges of helping Iran evade US sanctions. Members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail have also been charged with assault for a fight with protesters in the US in May.

NO GUARANTEES
Yildirim reiterated that Turkey gave the US no guarantees about any further legal processes, rejecting a Nov. 6 statement from the State Department that claimed otherwise. He said the only guarantee Turkey made was to share information with the US on “critical developments” that could further impact relations. While Yildirim expressed optimism that cooperation with the US will improve, the disagreements over execution of justice show how far the two sides remain from normalizing ties. In a statement following the meeting, the White House said both sides expressed hopes of ushering in a “new chapter in US-Turkey relations,” but added that the vice president had conveyed to Yildirim his “deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, Mission Turkey local staff, journalists, and members of civil society.”
There was little evidence of a breakthrough on other issues critical to both countries, including Turkey’s request that the US extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric that Turkey’s government blames for a July 2016 coup attempt. The arrests in Turkey were made in purges that followed the failed putsch, with people including the pastor and the US consular staff accused of supporting it.

‘DEAF SULTAN’
“Even the deaf sultan has heard that FETO was behind the July 15 coup,” Yildirim said, using the Turkish government’s term for Fethullah Gulen’s followers. “Everything that needs to be said on this subject has been said, and every document necessary has been delivered. What
we want now is for the US administration take a step on this issue immediately, to start an investigation, for the inquiry to begin.”
US officials have said that the evidence provided by Turkey about Gulen lacks sufficient proof of his direct involvement in the coup attempt to justify opening a probe. Gulen, whose influential global network was a longtime proponent of Erdogan and his ruling party but later turned into their arch-nemesis, denies involvement.
The US also made no concessions on its partnership with the YPG, a Kurdish group in Syria that Turkey lists as a terrorist organization, according to Yildirim. US forces have trained, armed and fought alongside the YPG against IS, despite strident Turkish objections.
“We know Turkey’s discomfort but our partnership is going to continue a bit longer,” Yildirim cited
the Americans as saying in the meeting. He said the US assured Turkey that its arrangement with the YPG was “tactical cooperation, not a long-term partnership.”