Turkish FM slams ‘fascist’ Netherlands, but says will not target citizens
LONDON: The Turkish foreign minister has called the Netherlands government “fascist,” saying there is little difference between the incumbent party and far-right election candidate Geert Wilders.
But Mevlut Cavusoglu said there would be no reprisals against Dutch citizens amid the increasingly tense war of words between Turkey and the Netherlands.
Cavusoglu was at the weekend barred from entering the Netherlands, where he planned to address a rally, after his plane’s landing rights were revoked.
The minister, speaking earlier this week to Becky Anderson on “Connect The World on CNN International,” said that there was a “fascist party” in power in the Netherlands.
“(There) is no difference between the rhetoric and the policies of the… liberal-social government and Wilders at this time in the Netherlands. This is no difference. And after the elections it doesn’t matter who wins, I think the supporters of Wilders will be happy,” Cavusoglu told CNN.
Erdogan had previously angered the Netherlands by saying the authorities had behaved like the Nazis, who had occupied and bombed the country in World War II. He warned the Netherlands will “pay the price” after a Turkish minister was blocked from visiting her country’s consulate in Rotterdam.
In the interview with CNN, Cavusoglu expanded on what this means.
“We are considering necessary steps and actions that we are going to take to reciprocate what they have done,” he said.
“Of course, we will not violate the international rules and democratic standards as they did. Because we don’t have a fascist government here in Turkey. We respect the international laws and the standards.”
But the measures will not be against the Dutch people, the minister added.
“We will not target the Dutch people and we will not harm them because it is not their mistake... the Dutch people (are) friends of Turkey and so many tourists are coming to Turkey, and we have been friends for 400 years... So we are not going to target the Dutch citizens.”
Meanwhile, the EU’s top officials sharply criticized Turkey on Wednesday for accusing Germany and the Netherlands of fascism, saying the charges were driving Ankara further away from its goal of joining the bloc.
“Rotterdam, the city of Erasmus, totally destroyed by the Nazis, which now has a mayor born in Morocco: If any anyone sees fascism in Rotterdam they are completely detached from reality,” European Council President Donald Tusk told a plenary session of the European Parliament.
Tusk’s remarks were echoed by European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, who told Parliament he was “scandalized” by the Turkish accusations about fascism and Nazism.