ISTANBUL – Turkey is urging Germany to reject the asylum requests of 40 former Turkish soldiers who allegedly took part in an unsuccessful coup.
Turkey's Defense Minister Fikri Isik said Sunday that the soldiers applied for asylum in Germany after being dismissed from the military.
The state-run Anadolu Agency quoted him urging German authorities to carefully assess the applications and reject them.
Isik says: "Our expectation from Germany is that they will never accept the asylum requests."
The minister is warning that bilateral relations would suffer if asylum were granted to any of the soldiers.
Greece's Supreme Court this week ruled against extraditing eight Turkish servicemen who fled their country after the failed July coup.
That decision infuriated Ankara, which threatened to cancel a bilateral agreement with Greece to curb illegal migration.
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