“Kosovo is Turkey, and Turkey is Kosovo.” This assertion, made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2013 while serving as prime minister, must have rung eerily true for six Turkish nationals as Turkish intelligence officials spirited them out of Kosovo by private jet on March 29.
The men, five Turkish schoolteachers and a medical doctor, have been accused of links to Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Sunni cleric the Turkish government blames for the failed 2016 coup attempt. The extractions, which human rights advocates denounced as illegal, have sent tremors through the tiny Balkan state, exposed the extent of Turkish impunity and ignited tensions between Turkey and its former Ottoman dominion.
