Turkey’s CHP party censures Ankara over refusal to extradite Hashemi

Faruk Logoglu said on Wednesday, “Instead of acting in line with a state of law identity, the government has made the Hashemi case an issue of challenge for sectarian inspirations, merely in a tribal mentality.”

    Logoglu also warned that the refusal to meet Iraq’s demand would further damage the Ankara-Baghdad ties, which are “on the verge of breaking off.”


On December 19, 2011, an investigative committee within the Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi after three of his bodyguards confessed to having taken orders from him to carry out bomb attacks against the government and security officials over the past years, including a November 2011 car bombing in Baghdad that apparently targeted Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

On September 9, a court in Iraq sentenced in absentia Hashemi and his secretary and son-in-law, Ahmed Qahtan, to death over their involvement in the terrorist activities.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, “We will host Hashemi in our country as long as he wants to remain in Turkey. We will not hand him over.”

The CHP deputy chairman called on Erdogan to avoid worsening the bilateral relations and negotiate with the Iraqi government to “find a compromise in line with Hashemi’s position that he was ready to return to Iraq if fair trial conditions and his safety were provided.”

Logoglu also urged the government to change its foreign policy immediately “based on international law and good neighborhood principles.”

On May 8, Interpol also issued an international Red Notice alert for the arrest of the fugitive Iraqi vice president “on suspicion of guiding and financing terrorist attacks.”