Erdoğan said Washington had "no excuse" for keeping Gülen, who has built up a network of terrorists over decades inside the armed forces and civil service to take over Turkey.
"If the U.S. is our strategic ally and our NATO partner... then they should not let a terrorist like Gülen run his organization," Erdoğan said, in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.