Macron asks Turkey leader to show respect
French President Emmanuel Macron accused Turkey of adopting a “bellicose” stance towards its NATO allies, in an interview broadcast on Saturday, saying tensions could ease if Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan showed respect and did not tell lies.
“Turkey has a bellicose attitude towards its NATO allies,” he told Al-Jazeera, condemning Turkey’s behaviour in Syria, Libya and the Mediterranean.
He said that France’s wish was that things “calm down” but for this to happen, it is essential that the “Turkish president respects France, respects the European Union, respects its values, does not tell lies and does not utter insults”.
He noted that France had offered its condolences to Turkey following the deadly earthquake in the Aegean and had also offered to send help to the scene.
He described Turkey’s intervention in Syria as a “surprise and “aggression” for NATO allies and said Ankara had not respected an arms embargo in Libya while showing a “deeply aggressive” attitude in the eastern Mediterranean. “I note that Turkey has imperial inclinations in the region and I think that these imperial inclinations are not a good thing for the stability of the region, that’s it.”
There have been weeks of tensions between France and Turkey, which reached a peak last weekend when Erdogan questioned the mental health of Macron. France responded by taking the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ankara for consultations.
However on Saturday, foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France would send its ambassador back to Ankara after a week’s absence. Le Drian told broadcaster RTL that Turkey made “the deliberate choice to instrumentalise” the beheading of a French teacher who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, accusing Ankara of launching “a hateful and slanderous campaign against us”.
However the minister said Turkey’s condemnation of a knife attack at a church in Nice this week had been “different, clear, unambiguous, but that does not preclude clarifications from Ankara”.
“We asked our ambassador to return to Ankara tomorrow to follow up this request for clarification and explanation with the Turkish authorities,” he added.