ISLAMABAD: Turkey’s president praised Pakistan on Thursday for siding with him against alleged followers of a dissident cleric he blames for a failed coup earlier this year, a day after Pakistan ordered 400 Turkish nationals to leave the country.
“We will eliminate this terrorist organization before it harms Pakistan,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech at Pakistan’s Parliament before lawmakers, the prime minister and the military leadership.
At a joint press conference, Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to enhance bilateral cooperation, share their experience in fighting terrorism and complete a free trade agreement by the end of 2017.
Turkey has waged a wide-scale crackdown against followers of Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled US-based cleric whose organization runs a global network of charities, business groups, schools and hospitals, including a network of charter schools in the US.
Erdogan’s visit to Pakistan comes as Islamabad ordered 400 Turkish nationals, mostly schoolteachers and their families, to leave the country within 72 hours. They have petitioned a court against the move, and the students have held protests.
Those who face expulsion include staff at the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges and their families. Ankara accuses the chain of links to Gulen.
PakTurk denied the allegations in a statement posted on its website, saying it has “no affiliation or connection with any political individual or any movement or organization.”
The Islamabad High Court, which took up the petition by the Turkish nationals, heard arguments from the school’s lawyer before a break in the proceedings, according to court official Faheem Rizvi.
The petition said the expulsion would adversely affect 11,000 students in 28 branches of the school across the country. It requested that the orders be rescinded and that the school’s expatriate staff be allowed to continue to work in Pakistan, he said.
Erdogan thanked Pakistan for taking action against the alleged Gulen supporters, and said that PakTurk students would not suffer.
Turkey thanks Pakistan for moving against Gulenists
Turkey thanks Pakistan for moving against Gulenists
Interim Venezuela leader to visit US
DAVOS: Venezuela’s interim president will soon visit the United States, a senior US official said Wednesday, further signaling President Donald Trump’s willingness to embrace the oil-rich country’s new leader.
Delcy Rodriguez would be the first sitting Venezuelan president to visit the United States in more than a quarter century — aside from presidents attending United Nations meetings in New York.
She said Wednesday that she approached any dialogue with the United States “without fear.”
“We are in a process of dialogue, of working with the United States, without any fear, to confront our differences and difficulties... and to address them through diplomacy,” said Rodriguez.
The invitation reflects a head-snapping shift in relations between Washington and Caracas since US Delta Force operatives swooped into Caracas, seized president Nicolas Maduro and spirited him to a US jail to face narcotrafficking charges.
Rodriguez was a former vice president and long-time insider in Venezuela’s authoritarian and anti-American government, before changing tack as interim president.
She is still the subject of US sanctions, including an asset freeze.
But with a flotilla of US warships still amassed off the Venezuelan coast, she has allowed the United States to broker the sale of Venezuelan oil, facilitated foreign investment and released dozens of political prisoners.
A senior White House official said Rodriguez would visit soon, but no date has been set.
The last bilateral visit by a sitting Venezuelan president came in the 1990s — before populist leader Hugo Chavez took power.
Since then, successive Venezuelan governments have made a point of thumbing their nose at Washington and building close ties with US foes in China, Cuba, Iran and Russia.
The US trip, which has yet to be confirmed by Venezuelan authorities, could pose problems for Rodriguez inside the government — where some hard-liners still detest what they see as Washington’s hemispheric imperialism.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez remain powerful forces in the country, and analysts say their support for Rodriguez is not a given.
Trump has so far appeared happy to allow Rodriguez and much of the repressive government to remain in power, so long as the United States has access to Venezuelan oil — the largest proven reserves in the world.
Trump hosted Venezuela’s exiled opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado at the White House earlier this month.
After initially dismissing Machado and her ability to control the country’s powerful armed forces and intelligence services, he said Tuesday that he would “love” to have her “involved in some way.”
Machado’s party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections that Washington said were stolen by Maduro.
Analysts say Trump’s embrace of Rodriguez and avoidance of wholesale regime change can be explained by an unwillingness to repeat mistakes made in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
“Those kinds of intervention operations — and the deployment of troops for stabilization — have always ended very badly,” said Benigno Alarcon, a politics expert at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas.
Trump’s stance has however angered democracy activists who argue that all political prisoners must be freed and granted amnesty, and Venezuela must hold fresh elections.
