Netherlands bars Turkish minister
ANKARA/ROTTERDAM: Turkey told the Netherlands yesterday it would retaliate in the ‘‘harshest ways’’ after Turkish ministers were barred from speaking in Rotterdam in a row over Ankara’s political campaigning among Turkish emigres.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had branded its fellow Nato member a ‘‘Nazi remnant’’ and the dispute escalated into a diplomatic incident yesterday, when Turkey’s Family Minister was prevented by police from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam.
Hundreds of protesters waving Turkish flags gathered outside, demanding to see the minister.
Dutch police used dogs and water cannon yesterday to disperse the crowd, which threw bottles and stones. Several demonstrators were beaten by police with batons, a Reuters witness said. Police carried out charges on horseback while officers advanced on foot with shields and armoured vans.
Less than a day after Dutch authorities prevented Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from flying to Rotterdam, Turkey’s Family Minister, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, said on Twitter she was being escorted back to Germany.
‘‘The world must take a stance in the name of democracy against this fascist act! This behaviour against a female minister can never be accepted,’’ she said. The Rotterdam mayor confirmed she was being escorted by police to the German border.
The Dutch Government, which stands to lose heavily to the antiIslam party of Geert Wilders in elections next week, said it considered the visits undesirable and ‘‘the Netherlands could not cooperate in the public political campaigning of Turkish ministers in the Netherlands’’.
The Government said it saw the potential to import divisions into its own Turkish minority, which has both pro and antiErdogan camps. Dutch politicians across the spectrum said they supported Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s decision to ban the visits.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said it did not want the Dutch ambassador to Ankara to return from leave ‘‘for some time’’. Turkish authorities sealed off the Dutch embassy in Ankara and consulate in Istanbul in apparent retaliation and hundreds gathered there to protest the Dutch action.
Erdogan is looking to the large number of emigre Turks living in Europe, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, to help clinch victory next month in a referendum that would give the presidency sweeping new powers. He has cited domestic threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants and a July coup bid as cause to vote ‘‘yes’’ to those powers, but he has also drawn on the emotionally charged row with Europe to portray Turkey as betrayed by allies while facing wars on its southern borders.
Cavusoglu, who was barred from a similar meeting in Hamburg last week but spoke instead from the Turkish consulate, accused the Dutch of treating the many Turkish citizens in the country like hostages, cutting them off from Ankara.
He also threatened harsh economic and political sanctions if the Dutch refused him entry, and those threats proved decisive for the Netherlands Government.
It cited public order and security concerns in withdrawing landing rights for Cavusoglu’s flight and said the threat of sanctions made the search for a reasonable solution impossible.
Addressing a rally of supporters, Erdogan retaliated against the decision to prevent Cavusoglu from visiting Rotterdam. ‘‘Listen Netherlands . . . my people will thwart your game,’’ he said. ‘‘You can cancel our foreign minister’s flight as much as you want, but let’s see how your flights will come to Turkey now.’’
‘‘They don’t know diplomacy or politics. They are Nazi remnants. They are fascists,’’ he said.