ANKARA
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama met on Friday on the sidelines of a high-level NATO summit in Wales.
Erdogan had said prior to the meeting that the two leaders would discuss the crisis in Syria and Iraq with the advance of radical Islamic State militant group, instability in North Africa and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In remarks to press before arriving in Cardiff for the NATO summit, Erdogan said he would ask Obama for the deportation or extradition of US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government sees as a national security threat.
Erdogan accuses the Hizmet movement led by Gulen of infiltrating the state and attempting to overthrow the government.
The new government led by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu cites combatting the 'parallel state' -- comprising Gulen's followers -- as one of its goals in the recently-unveiled government program.
Erdogan and Obama had their first private meeting since May 2013, when Erdogan visited Washington as prime minister.
On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Erdogan also held bilateral talks with several other state leaders, including U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
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