Turkish troops quit Nato drills over ‘Erdogan enemy’ poster

TURKEY is pulling 40 soldiers out of a Nato exercise in Norway, after the name of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its president, appeared in a list of enemies on a poster at the drill.

The incident prompted an apology from both the military alliance and Oslo. Turkey has the second largest army in the alliance after the US, and it borders Syria, Iraq and Iran, lending it great strategic importance for Nato.

The relationship has become increasingly fractious as Ankara drifts away from the alliance and the European Union, alarming the West.

Mr Erdogan said an “enemy poster”, featuring his name on one side and a picture of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, on the other, was unfurled at the training exercise in Norway, prompting a decision by Turkey’s military chief and EU minister to pull the troops out.

“They said they had decided to pull our troops out and will do so, so we told them to not stop and go ahead... take our 40 soldiers out of there,” Mr Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party in Ankara.

Commenting at the alliance’s Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary-general, said: “I apologise for the offence that has been caused.

“The incidents were the result of an individual’s actions and do not reflect the views of Nato,” said Mr Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister.

The individual involved, a civilian contractor seconded by Norway and not a Nato employee, was immediately removed from the exercise, he said.

In a separate statement, Frank Bakke-jensen, Norway’s defence minister, said the offending message had been published on a computer network used during the exercise.