North Macedonia’s newly elected president, Stevo Pendarovski, has said Turkey asked his country to extradite 15 people over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the tr724 news website reported on Thursday.
Speaking to journalists in Brussels, Pendarovski said 10 of the individuals being sought are Macedonian citizens, while the other five are Turkish nationals.
He stressed that any request from a foreign country would be processed in line with European Union codes and Macedonian law.
Turkey has requested the extradition of over a hundred Gülen-linked individual from foreign states, including east European countries such as Moldova and Kosovo.
Accusing the Gülen movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, the Turkish government launched a purge to halt the activities of the movement.
Although US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen and his followers strongly deny any involvement in the abortive putsch, half a million people have been the subjects of prosecution on terrorism charges since 2016.
