Egypt announced on Wednesday that it will consider a request for asylum from Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ) leader Fethullah Gülen if he applies for one.

According to the state-run MENA news agency, responding to a question about whether Gülen has requested asylum in the country, Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said: "We don't have any application about this issue. However, we will consider it if any application is made."

Previously, Ahmad al-Muselmani, the press advisor for the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, Adly Mansour, had suggested asylum should be provided for Gülen in the event Washington extradites him.

Speaking on television in Egypt, he said this step "will strengthen Egypt's hand against Turkey."

According to diplomats, Egypt had blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution backed by the U.S. last Saturday that condemned the attempted coup in Turkey.

Following consultations with officials from NATO ally Turkey, the U.S. proposed a draft statement calling on "all parties in Turkey to respect the democratically elected government of Turkey." However, Egypt, a non-permanent member of the council, reportedly objected. An Egyptian diplomatic source denied that Cairo had blocked the resolution. "This is a process that requires consensus," he said, adding that Egypt agreed to the "overall objectivity of the statement" that condemned the violence and called for restraint. "We proposed calling on all parties to respect democratic and constitutional principles and rule of law," he said, in wording that changed the initial statement calling for respect for the "democratically elected government."

During the debate, Egypt argued that it was "not for the Security Council to decide whether the government is democratically elected," and it demanded that the relevant language be deleted, a diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Despite U.S. insistence, Egypt would not budge.

The current president of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, is a former general who overthrew the democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013 after mass protests against Morsi's contentious rule. Many countries, including Turkey, condemned the coup and provided support to Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.