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Monday, April 4, 2011

WikiLeaks files detail U.S. unease over Turks and charter schools | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/04/2011

WikiLeaks files detail U.S. unease over Turks and charter schools | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/04/2011

WikiLeaks files detail U.S. unease over Turks and charter schools

Classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks recount U.S. officials' growing concern over large numbers of Turkish men seeking visas to work at American charter schools founded by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a powerful Turkish Muslim political figure who lives in the Poconos.

"Gulen supporters account for an increasing proportion of [the] . . . nonimmigrant visa applicant pool," a consular official in Istanbul, Turkey, wrote in 2006, according to one of the documents posted by WikiLeaks two weeks ago.

"Consular officials have noticed that most of these applicants share a common characteristic: They are generally evasive about their purpose