Erdogan threatens Kosovo's PM, says Haradinaj will pay a price

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj on Saturday came under fire from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an international crisis continued to brew after some high-level rogue Kosovar officials detained and extradited six anti-government Turkish nationals to Ankara.

“Oh Kosova’s Prime Minister, who gave you orders to start protecting those trying to stage a coup against the Republic of Turkey?” An angry Erdogan asked in Istanbul, reminding that the Turkish state was the second country to recognize Kosovo when it declared independence in 2008.

“How come you feed those coup-plotters? You will pay the price for this. My Kosovar brothers shall not give you credit. They will ask a price for this. Politics is not conducted with remote control,” he continued.

Erdogan refrained from using Haradinaj’s name and implied Western countries were behind the latter’s decision to dismiss his interior minister and the secret service chief who were responsible for the arrest and extradition of the Turks without a fully legal and diplomatic process.

“The operation of urgent and secret detention and deportation of six Turkish citizens from the territory of the Republic of Kosovo to the Republic of Turkey was conducted without informing, nor requesting my permission as Prime Minister,” Haradinaj tweeted on Friday.

Following their arrest, the men were promptly deprived of their Kosovo residence permits, deported, and detained upon arrival in Ankara.

The deported six were teachers at a private Pristina school run by the movement of the US-based Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen which Ankara claims is responsible for mounting a failed military coup to overthrow Erdogan’s rule in 2016.

Erdogan’s administration has since then repeatedly asked Washington to extradite Gulen and his supporters finding refuge there, with US officials finding the Turkish allegations unsatisfying.

Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency on Thursday claimed they were “senior members of FETO” and that the intelligence brought them on a private plane.

Human Rights Watch said the extradition of Turkish nationals was “a callous disregard for human rights.”

“In addition to the questionable arrests, the men were sent to a country where they face a serious risk of torture,” the HRW said in a statement.

The US ambassador to Pristina, Greg Delawie, said he was closely following the events unfolding in the small Balkan nation whose ties with Turkey date back to Ottoman times.

“Transparency and commitment to due process and the rule of law are vital,” he tweeted.

There was no other comment from the US which played the most prominent role in Kosovo’s becoming independent, or the European Union to which the partially-recognized state is an aspiring member.

Dozens of Gulen followers have previously been arrested and extradited to Turkey from Thailand, Malaysia, and Sudan among other Asian and African nations.

Europeans and the US, however, have denied Turkish requests.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany