In what is the most shocking geopolitical news of the day, NBC reports that the Trump administration is weighing extraditing the nemesis of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, cleric Fethulah Gulen who has been living for years in relative seclusion in rural Pennsylvania, from the U.S. in order to placate Turkey over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
According to the NBC report, Trump administration officials last month asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine legal ways of removing the exiled Turkish cleric in an attempt to persuade Erdogan to ease pressure on the Saudi government. The effort includes directives to the Justice Department and 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, four sources told NBC.
In hopes of finding immigration irregularities, the White House has requested details about Gulen's residency status in the U.S. Gulen - who has been living in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s - has a Green Card.
As NBC also adds, there was a certain level of incredulity at this sequence of events: career officials at the agencies pushed back on the White House requests, the U.S. officials and people briefed on the requests said. "At first there were eye rolls, but once they realized it was a serious request, the career guys were furious," said a senior U.S. official involved in the process.
What is strange is that while Trump appears eager to appease Erdogan by handing him his arch enemy, the person whom the Turkish president has blamed for creating a "shadow government", and being responsible for the failed 2016 coup attempt, a Turkish official said 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. "We want to see action on the end of the United States in terms of the extradition of Gulen. And we're going to continue our investigation on behalf of the Khashoggi case."
So why the extradition push? According to NBC, the secret effort to resolve one of the leading tensions in U.S.-Turkey relations – Gulen's residency in the U.S. – provides a window into how President Donald Trump is trying to navigate hostility between two key allies after Saudi officials murdered Khashoggi on October 2 at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul.
It suggests the White House could be looking for ways to appease and contain Erdogan's ire over the murder while preserving Trump's close alliance with Saudi Arabia's controversial de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...an-lira-surges
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