Erdogan Says Turkish Journalist Should Be Extradited

BERLIN (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says prominent Turkish journalist Can Dundar, who is in exile in Germany, is a convicted spy and should be extradited to Turkey.

Erdogan told reporters Friday: "At this moment this person is, according to Turkish law, a convict, a spy (who has) revealed state secrets." He was speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Dundar was convicted in 2016 of revealing state secrets after his newspaper published photographs suggesting that Turkey's intelligence agency was involved in sending weapons to Syrian rebels, and fled for Germany that year.

Merkel said it was "no secret" that Turkey and Germany differed in the case of Dundar, and stressed that there was no pressure put on him not to attend the press conference.

She says he "reached his own decision not to participate."

Earlier, Dundar said he would not attend the press conference after learning that Erdogan was considering canceling it if he were there.

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