Turkish court issues arrest warrant for US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen

President Erdogan blames the Pennsylvania-based cleric for last month’s coup plot

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will continue to purge the country of so-called Gulenists (AFP/Getty)

A Turkish court has formally issued an arrest warrant for the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government has accused of being behind the failed coup last month.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said an Istanbul court had issued the warrant for “ordering the 15 July coup attempt”.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Mr Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, of masterminding the plot which saw soldiers take control of bridges on the Bosphorus, the state broadcaster and the main airport in Istanbul.

The soldiers announced they had taken control of the country but after President Erdogan told his supporters to go out onto the streets to resist the coup, he was able to re-establish control.

Mr Gulen has denied any knowledge of the coup which killed 270 people and has led to the arrest of 18,000 others.

A further 70,000 people have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs in the civil service, judiciary, education, police, healthcare, the military and the media.

Turkey has deemed the Gulenist movement, which runs charities, schools and businesses, as a terrorist organisation and launched a widespread crackdown on suspected members.

Ankara has not made a formal extradition request but the arrest warrant paves the way to do so legally.

Washington previously asked for evidence that Mr Gulen was involved and said the extradition process would follow in due course.

During a speech to the heads of chambers of commerce in Ankara, Mr Erdogan said: "Without doubt, this organisation has an extension in the business world. Maybe it is what they are most powerful at.

"We are determined to totally cut off all business links of this organisation, which has blood on its hands."

He said every penny that goes to finance the Gulenist movement "is a bullet placed in a barrel to be fired against this nation. In the same way that we do not pardon those who fire the bullet, we will not forgive those who financed the bullet".

The president said the purge of the military would continue as the arrests made so far were “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Separately, the deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Mehdi Eker, said countries around the world need to take action against schools or other establishments linked to Gulen.

Mr Eker said the cleric's movement had hundreds of schools, charities or other establishments in more than 100 countries and warned they too could face “security risks” from the group in the future.

“If we had seen that these schools were not innocent educational nests but nurseries raising members for a terror organisation, we would not have lived through the (attempted coup),” he told journalists in Ankara.

“It is our responsibility to warn countries that have (Gulen-linked) schools,” Mr Eker said. “In Africa, we know that they work as nurseries (for terror) and we want to warn them.”