Dutch PM bars Turkish FM’s flight
Austria stops 4 Turkey meetings as row spreads
ANKARA/AMSTERDAM, March 11, (Agencies): The Netherlands barred Turkey’s Foreign Minister from flying to Rotterdam on Saturday and President Tayyip Erdogan responded by calling his NATO partner a “Nazi remnant” as a row over Ankara campaigning among emigre Turkish voters intensified.
Rotterdam had banned Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from attending a Turkish rally in support of Erdogan’s drive for sweeping new powers, to be put to a referendum next month.
The Dutch are due to vote in a national election on Wednesday, in which anti-immigration sentiment has played a prominent role with nationalist candidate Geert Wilders calling Erdogan a dictator.
Cavusoglu had said on Saturday morning he would fly to Rotterdam anyway and accused the Dutch of treating Turkish citizens in the country like “hostages”.
“If my going will increase tensions, let it be. What damage will my going have on them? I am a foreign minister and I can go wherever I want,” he said before the Dutch barred his flight.
Cavusoglu had threatened harsh economic and political sanctions if the Dutch refused him entry, a threat that proved decisive for the Netherlands government.
Withdrawing
It cited public order and security concerns in withdrawing landing rights for Cavusoglu’s flight. But it said the sanctions threat made the search for a reasonable solution impossible.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said that while the Netherlands and Turkey could search for “an acceptable solution”, Turkey was not respecting the rules relating to public gatherings.
“Many Dutch people with a Turkish background are authorized to vote in the referendum over the Turkish constitution. The Dutch government does not have any protest against gatherings
independent investigation was urgently needed. (RTRS)
Turkey helicopter crash kills 7:
A helicopter crashed on a highway on Istanbul’s outskirts Friday after apparently hitting a television tower in dense fog, reports said. All seven people on board were killed, the city’s mayor said.
The Sikorsky S-76 was carrying an executive of the Eczacibasi group of companies, four of his Russian guests and two pilots.
Gov Vasip Sahin said that the helicopter in our country to inform them about it,” he said on Facebook.
Four planned Turkish rallies in Austria and one in Switzerland have also been cancelled in the dispute.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country Erdogan compared last week with Nazi Germany, has said she will do everything possible to prevent any spillover of Turkish political tensions onto German soil.
Cavusoglu said Turks in Germany were under systematic pressure from police and intelligence services.
Clinch
Erdogan is looking to the large number of emigre Turks living in Europe, especially Germany and the Netherlands, to help clinch victory in next month’s referendum which will shape the future of a country whose position on the edge of the Middle East makes it of crucial strategic importance to NATO.
He has cited domestic threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants and a July coup bid as cause to vote “yes” to his new powers. But he has also drawn on the emotionally charged row with Europe to portray Turkey as betrayed by allies, facing wars on its southern borders and in need of strong leadership.
“Listen Netherlands, you’ll jump once, you’ll jump twice, but my people will thwart your game,” Erdogan said. “You can cancel our foreign minister’s flight as much as you want, but let’s see how your flights come to Turkey now.
“They don’t know diplomacy or politics. They are Nazi remnants. They are fascists.”
Erdogan chafes at Western criticism of his mass arrests and dismissals of people authorities believe were linked to a failed July attempt by the military to topple him.
Cavusoglu made a veiled threat of possible realignment of Turkey in the world in a reference to Russia.
“The Netherlands should stop this faulty understanding and approach ...
crashed in Istanbul’s Buyukcekmece district after taking off from Ataturk Airport, adding that the cause of the crash was under investigation.
Authorities initially recovered five bodies from the crash site, but Mayor Kadir Topbas later said that all seven on board were killed.
Thick black smoke could be seen billowing from the crash site in video shown on Turkish network DHA. Burning debris was scattered across a large stretch of the highway. (AP)
Firefighters remove the remains of a helicopter that crashed in Istanbul’s Buyukcekmece district, March 10. A helicopter crashed on an highway on the outskirts of Istanbul on Friday, after apparently hitting a television tower in dense fog,
reports said. At least seven people were killed, the governor said. (AP)
If they think Turkey will take whatever they do, that Turkey is gone. I told them this, stop this boss-like attitude. If Europe keeps this up, they will lose many places, including Russia and us.”
Meanwhile, Turkey summoned the Dutch charge d’affaires to the foreign ministry on Saturday, foreign ministry sources said, as a row between the two countries escalated with the Dutch government banning Turkey’s Foreign Minister from flying to Rotterdam.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had been due to fly to Rotterdam to marshal support among the Turkish community for extended powers for President Tayyip Erdogan — a potentially divisive issue in Turkey where a referendum will take place next month. City authorities said on Friday they were banning the rally.
The Dutch government cited public order and security concerns in withdrawing landing rights for Cavusoglu’s flight. But it said Cavusoglu’s threat hours earlier of political and economic sanctions if travel permission were withdrawn made the search for a reasonable solution impossible.
VIENNA:
Four planned Turkish political meetings in Austria were cancelled on Friday in the latest signs of unease across Europe over a series of campaign events to rally support among expatriate Turks for President Tayyip Erdogan.
A spokesman for police in the city of Linz said the private owner of a venue there had cancelled an event featuring a party colleague of Erdogan.
The town of Hoerbranz near the German border cancelled a separate event with a former Turkish minister because the organisers falsely labelled it as a book presentation.
Another event was scrapped in Herzogenburg, and a spokeswoman for a hotel in Wiener Neustadt, near Vienna, said it had cancelled a meeting planned for Sunday.
Palestinian killed in clashes:
Lebanon’s state news agency says one Palestinian has been killed and others wounded during intense clashes that erupted in one of the capital’s crowded southern suburbs.
The National News Agency says calm has been restored Friday to Burj al-Barajneh area in south Beirut after clashes that lasted hours. The agency says the army has deployed in the area that houses a Palestinian refugee camp and Lebanese families. The suburb’s population is predominantly Shiite Muslims.
The agency says the clashes erupted after a personnel dispute between a Palestinian and Lebanese family. Videos posted online showed heavily-armed men roaming the squalid suburb amid intense clashes. The agency says the clashes involved machine guns and mortars, and left residences and cars severely damaged. (AP)
‘Russian firm operated in Libya’:
A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until last month in a part of Libya that is under the control of regional leader Khalifa Haftar, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters.
It is the clearest signal to date that Moscow is prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar — even at the risk of alarming Western governments already irked at Russia’s intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.
Haftar is opposed to a UN-backed government which Western states see as the best chance of restoring stability in Libya. But some Russian policy-makers see the Libyan as a strongman who can end the six years of anarchy that followed the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. (RTRS)