President-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Turkey’s southern province of Antalya for hunting this week, Turkish media reported.
According to a story from the Doğan news agency on Wednesday, Trump Jr., 38, went hunting near the resort city of Antalya along Turkey’s southern coast accompanied by several guides and shot two wild goats.
Following the hunt, which took place on Tuesday, Trump Jr.’s team left Antalya for Germany.
Trump Jr. was the target of criticism during the US election for posing next to a dead elephant and buffalo.
The hunting visit of President-elect Trump’s son comes amid claims that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seeks an alliance with the incoming Trump administration.
It was recently revealed that Trump’s top security adviser, retired Gen, Michael Flynn’s security consulting company, Flynn Intel Group, filed a lobbying disclosure which states that Flynn’s firm will advise Innova BV, a firm based in Holland and owned by Ekim Alptekin, an ally of Erdoğan and also chairman of the Turkish American Business Council, on US domestic and foreign policy and congressional appropriations bills for the State Department.
Most interestingly, Flynn wrote an op-ed for Washington-based The Hill on Nov. 8, just hours before Trump was declared president-elect, in which he repeatedly praised Erdoğan and called on the next president of the US to extradite US-based Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey since Erdoğan accuses him of masterminding a failed coup in Turkey on July 15.
Turkish authorities claim Gülen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, was the mastermind behind the violent coup attempt that killed over 240 people and injured a thousand others, while Gülen strongly denies any involvement.
The Turkish government and President Erdoğan have designated the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Gülen and operating charities, schools and businesses around the world, as a terrorist organization and have launched a widespread crackdown on suspected members since the failed coup. More than 115,000 have been dismissed from state jobs, close to 73,000 detained and over 32,000 arrested by Turkey over links to Gülen.
While Erdoğan and the Turkish government have demanded Gülen’s extradition from the US and shut down schools linked with the movement, US officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have several times said that it is the US courts that will decide on Gülen’s extradition if a case is filed against him with concrete evidence that demonstrates his involvement in a crime.