TIRANA, April 3 – Kosovo’s arrest and extradition last Thursday of six Turkish citizens allegedly working for cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed for the 2016 coup d’etat against the Turkish government, received protests by Kosovo students, while experts criticized the decision for not adhering to national and international legislature.
The decision came as a collaboration between Kosovo’s intelligence service and its Ministry of Internal Affairs, which released a statement saying it had revoked six residence permits based on “sufficient legal grounds” , but giving no further information regarding the concrete evidence which led to the decision.
Even though Erdogan thanked Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci for complying with Turkey’s request, both Thaci and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said they were not aware of the citizens’ extradition.
Thaci, in a statement for the media, said he was notified about the extradition after it took place on the grounds the citizens did not have proper residence permits in Kosovo.
“We should clarify the reasons that led to the extradition of these Turkish citizens in Turkey,” he said, adding that Kosovo will protect its constitutional and sovereign values to the end.
Haradinaj’s statement was similar to Thaci’s.
“There are certain elements that make the acceleration of this situation to the point of extradition unclear. As Kosovo’s Prime Minister and without being informed by any local institution concerning their deportation, I will act in accordance to the constitutional and legal requirements of this act,” Haradinaj said.
Following these statements, Haradinaj sacked Minister of Interior Flamur Sefaj and the head of the Intelligence Service Driton Gashi, further charging the rhetoric between Prishtina and Ankara.
“Shame to Kosovo’s Prime Minister. Ousting the country’s head of intelligentsia and its minister of interior, who handed over to us members of the FETO terrorist organization, is a historical mistake. Because they did their job,” Erdogan was reported to have said by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Local and international experts, however, have claimed otherwise.
“It’s ridiculous to address state sovereignty as a counter-argument, because Kosovo did not act as a state in ignoring all international human-right laws and internal extradition procedures,” an expert of the Albanian Institute of International Studies told Tirana Times.
Other experts also commented on what this decision process indicates for Kosovo, so far only recognized by 111 out 193 UN member states – Turkey being one of them.
The extradition of foreign citizens — who in this case were teachers, principals and a doctor working for the group of schools owned by Gulan in the Balkans — should have come after internal communication among governmental bodies, and in adherence to international law procedures, experts have said.
Anadolu Agency said Turkish intelligence agency MIT used a private plane to take the arrested back to Turkey, in a move that reflects complete lack of transparency and adherence to the rule of law.
“This is a crystal clear case of Kosovo failing to act as a state based on international law, all legal frameworks and its own constitutional procedures which protect the human rights of legal citizens in a democratic country,” the AIIS expert said.
Others also highlighted the absence of Kosovo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the decision-making process, a crucial body when it comes to foreign-relations decisions and a pillar for addressing formal and mandatory international law procedures.
“Kosovo has become the only proxy state in the world in the ongoing ‘war’ between Erdogan and Gulen; while other states are referring to international law and internal procedures to deal with political refugees, Kosovo allowed a private plane to take six legal citizens back to Turkey without caring about international procedures” the AIIS expert added.
Meanwhile, students, fellow teachers and family members of the deported Turkish nationals who were arrested on Thursday protested in downtown Prishtina, calling for their release.
