Sr. Reporter: U.S. suspicious of Turkish visa applicants since 2006

Tim Steller, Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star
Monday, April 4, 2011 2:00 pm

A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks shows that as far back as 2006, American officials were suspicious of Turkish applicants for H-1B visas wanting to go to U.S. charter schools.

The leaked cable shows the government has raised similar questions about charter schools inspired by Turkish imam Fethullah Gulen as have been raised in news reports for 18 months. The U.S. cable focuses on the same visa issue I analyzed in these 2009 stories about Tucson's Sonoran Science Academy and its sister schools.

The U.S. diplomats were not shy about identifying the applicants as "Gulenists": The title of the cable is "Fethullah Gulen: Why are his followers traveling?"

In the cable, dated May 23, 2006, unnamed U.S. diplomats say "Gulenist" applicants began appearing, seeking visas to visit charter schools in the United States "several years ago."

"As applicants, Gulenists are almost uniformly evasive about their purpose of travel and their relationships to Gulen, raising questions among Consular officers. Our unease is also shared by secular segments of Turkish society."

"These applicants generally are not forthcoming about the source of their travel funds. They frequently write 'myself' or 'my company' in response to the travel-funding question on the DS-156 application form, but when pressed to clarify the exact source of funds, only vaguely answer that 'my company' or 'the orgnaization' will pay."

The Philadelphia Inquirer, which recently reported there is a federal criminal investigation of the Gulenist charter schools, also has a story based on the cable.

The cable concludes: "While on the survace a benign humanitarian movement, the ubiquitous evasiveness of Gulenist applicants — coupled with what appears to be a deliberate management of applicant profiles over the past several years — leaves Consular officers uneasy, an uneasiness echoed within Turkey by those familiar with the Gulenists."

Recently, a counteroffensive has emerged, largely on the Internet, seeking to discredit those who connect the Turkish-founded charter schools in the U.S. to the Gulen Movement. The cable appears to undercut this effort.

http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/senor-r ... 002e0.html