US Vice President Joe Biden is to visit Turkey on August 24.

US Vice President Joe Biden is to visit Turkey on August 24, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was quoted as saying by Turkish media on Saturday.

Yildirim, speaking to a group of Turkish journalists, said that Washington’s attitude on an extradition request for Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating an attempted coup last month, had improved.

Yildirim said a total of 81,494 people including judges, soldiers and civil servants have either been suspended or sacked since the July 15 abortive putsch.

Last week, the US State Department – commenting on charges in the Turkish press that a Washington think tank was behind last month’s failed coup in Turkey – said such inflammatory rhetoric is not helpful.

“This sort of conspiracy theory, inflammatory rhetoric … is absolutely not helpful,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told a briefing when asked about charges in the Turkish press that the Woodrow Wilson Center think tank was behind the failed coup.

“We have certainly spoken to our Turkish counterparts on unhelpful rhetoric,” she added.

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