Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has called on North Macedonia’s newly elected government to join its fight against the faith-based Gülen movement, the Balkan Insight news website reported.
Fidan made this call during his visit to Skopje, where he expressed hope that North Macedonia’s new right-wing government, led by the VMRO-DPMNE party, would be more responsive to Ankara’s concerns.
The minister did not specify what actions he expected the government to take, but his comments appeared aimed at gauging the new administration’s commitment to Turkey’s longstanding extradition requests.
Ankara has repeatedly sought the deportation of alleged Gülen supporters from North Macedonia. In 2021 Turkey handed over a list of 86 individuals, seeking the extradition of 20. Despite these requests, no deportations or extraditions have reportedly occurred.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Since the coup attempt in July 2016, Erdoğan’s long arm has reached tens of thousands of Turkish citizens abroad. From spying through diplomatic missions and pro-government diaspora organizations to denial of consular services and outright intimidation and illegal renditions, the Turkish government has been using a wide range of tactics against its critics overseas.
A Stockholm Center for Freedom report, released in 2021 and titled “Turkey’s Transnational Repression: Abduction, Rendition and Forcible Return of Erdoğan Critics,” detailed such efforts.
The government’s campaign has mostly relied on renditions, in which the government and its intelligence agency (MİT) persuade the relevant states to hand over individuals without due process, using various methods. The victims have suffered several human rights violations including arbitrary arrest, house raids, torture and ill-treatment during these operations.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç previously said the Turkish government has sought the extradition of 1,269 people living in exile in 112 countries over alleged links to the movement.
MİT confirmed in its annual report that it had conducted operations for the forcible return of more than 100 people with alleged links to the Gülen movement.
“… [M]ore than 100 members of the [Gülen movement] from different countries were brought to Turkey as a result of the [agency’s] increased operational capacity abroad,” MİT’s 2022 report said.
In one example, Turkish national Emsal Koç was illegally brought to Turkey from Tajikistan. Koç went missing in Dushanbe on June 2 and was found to be in police custody in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum when the police contacted his family living in the province.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in its first resolution condemning all forms of transnational repression as a growing threat to the rule of law and human rights revealed the tactics of countries including Turkey to suppress their critics abroad.
In several of these cases the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concluded that the arrest, detention and forced transfer to Turkey of Turkish nationals were arbitrary and in violation of international human rights norms and standards.
