The Foreign Ministry described the EP’s decision as hypocritical, adding that ‘like so many others, it will not contribute to the development of bilateral relations’.

In particular, MEPs had condemned Ankara the day before for its actions against the Peoples’ Democratic Party, the third largest political force in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly (parliament).

The Constitutional Court of this Eurasian nation is evaluating a request to cancel this formation and, with it, to remove about 500 of its members from politics.

In this scenario, security forces began operations, by order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul and this capital, to arrest 46 followers of the cleric Fethullah Gullen, a refugee in the United States, whom Turkey accuses of instigating a failed coup d’état against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016.

At least 19 suspects were already arrested in five provinces during an earlier operation and several fled the country, according to Anadolu news agency.

In that context the U.S. justice system refuses to extradite Gullen while dozens of his followers were captured in third countries and brought back to this nation for trial.

pgh/abo/mgt/ehl