TIRANA, September 18 – Turkish journalist Ahmet Emre Olur was deported to Turkey on Sunday morning, said sources from the Rinas airport police. He was caught at Tirana airport trying to enter Albania.
The sources said that the Albanian authorities had refused political asylum to the Turkish citizen, deciding to deport him to Turkey.
When he came to Albania, the journalist traveled from Dubai to Serbia and from Serbia he arrived in Tirana.
The police claimed that Olur had a two-year residence permit and this permit had expired, and as a result the Turkish had to be deported to his country of origin.
Journalist Olur is known to be prosecuted in Turkey because of his editorial positions against the government of President Erdogan.
Albania is in the spotlight of the issue of deportations of adversaries of Erdogan who exerts harsh pressure on the government of Edi Rama to deport a group of citizens who are allegedly supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in the United States. Erdogan has accused him of organizing an uprising to overthrow him but Gulen denied inspiring the attempted coup in Turkey.
The ‘fraternal’ relations between Erdogan and Rama seem to have worsened lately and one of the reasons is the pressure that the EU exerts on the Albanian PM not to extradite the so called Gulenists from the country. Albania is a candidate country to join the Union. /Argumentum.al
