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Enes Kanter is back in the United States following detention in Romanian airport

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May 21, 2017 at 6:17 p.m. EDT

Oklahoma City Thunder center Enes Kanter landed in New York on Sunday morning, one day after he was detained in Bucharest, Romania, for what he said were political reasons relating to his opposition of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kanter’s agent, Hilmi Cilnar, told ESPN that his client will hold a news conference on Monday in New York.

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ESPN and The New York Times reported that the NBA worked with the State Department to get Kanter to London after the Turkish national and six-year veteran was released from the airport in Romania on Saturday.

Kanter again took to Twitter later Saturday, proclaiming that everything is “all good.”

In a video posted from the airport to Twitter on Saturday morning, Kanter said he arrived in Bucharest to find that his passport had been canceled by his country’s embassy and called Erdogan “the Hitler of our century.”

“What’s up, world? Just want to say we are in Romania and they said they canceled my passport by Turkish embassy,” Kanter said. “The reason behind is just of course my political views and the guy who did it is … the president of Turkey. … He’s attacked the people in Washington, he’s a bad, bad man, he’s a dictator and he’s the Hitler of our century. So I’ll keep you posted, guys, just pray for us.”

Erdogan’s guards clash with protesters outside Turkish ambassador’s D.C. residence

Kanter was on a worldwide tour for the Enes Kanter Foundation, which provides meals and clothing to the needy worldwide. He arrived in Bucharest on a flight from Singapore and had remaining stops in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland that likely will be canceled.

“Today at around 1 p.m. local time an individual arrived from Frankfurt,” Fabian Badila, a spokesman for the Romanian border police, said in an interview with the New York Times. “My colleagues established that his travel documents weren’t valid, that they had been canceled by his home country, so he wasn’t allowed to enter the country.

“At around 5 p.m., he left the airport on a flight to London,” Badila continued. “While he was at the airport he wasn’t detained or locked up, he was allowed to wander around, but he couldn’t enter the country.”

Indeed, Kanter’s forced stay at the airport didn’t seem to be particularly taxing.

Hank Fetic, one of Kanter’s representatives, told the Oklahoman’s Brett Dawson that the Turkish government often reports citizens’ passports as stolen or missing to have them confiscated in foreign countries, and that appears to be the case in this instance. If he had been deported to Turkey, he could have faced arrest.

In his Twitter video, Kanter referred to Tuesday’s clash outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington between guards for Erdogan, who was visiting the U.S. capital, and people who were peacefully protesting his policies. Video of the fracas went viral, leading to outrage and calls for the ambassador’s expulsion from the United States.

The Thunder big man, who was born in Switzerland to Turkish parents and claims Turkish citizenship, has long been a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who is accused of being the mastermind behind a failed, bloody coup attempt against Erdogan last year. Kanter’s family disowned him after he continued his support of the cleric last year, leading him to informally change his last name to Gulen last year.

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