ANKARA: Turkey has officially demanded the temporary arrest and extradition of former Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-chair Salih Muslim from Germany, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on March 5.
Turkey issued request to the German authorities for the arrest and extradition of Muslim on March 2 but Germany has so far “failed to meet the expectations of judicial practices” between the two countries, Turkish government spokesperson Bekir Bozdağ stated on March 5.
“I would like to say we believe in the judges in Europe … The Turkish game will never work in Europe. I am now free and I will be free until we win victory in Syria and Afrin,” Muslim said, according to a video shared on Facebook by the PYD.
A Turkish delegation headed by Interior Ministry Undersecretary Muhterem İnce was in Berlin on Jan. 17-18 for discussions with his counterpart Emily Haber about the joint struggle against terrorism, especially the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the network of Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-based Islamic preacher accused of being behind the July 2016 coup attempt. Some 400 Turkish citizens, including high ranking Turkish military officers, have sought political asylum in Germany since the coup attempt.
As Turkey regards the PYD as an offshoot of the outlawed PKK, Muslim is currently a suspect in three different cases related to deadly terror attacks in Istanbul and Ankara.
Ankara’s 4th and 14th Heavy Criminal Courts, as well as the Ankara 2nd Criminal Court of Peace, issued an arrest warrant for Muslim upon the request of prosecutors for the bombing of Ankara Güvenpark on March 13, 2016, in which 37 people were killed and 125 were injured, the bombing at Istanbul’s Merasim Street on Feb. 17, 2016, in which 29 people lost their lives, and the explosion at the Ankara Tax Office on Feb. 1, 2018.
