Turkey-Dutch relations take dip after Turkish visits banned
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — The escalating dispute between Turkey and the Netherlands spilled over into Sunday, with a Turkish minister unable to enter her consulate after the Dutch had already blocked a visit by the foreign minister, prompting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call the Dutch “Nazi remnants.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was barred from landing in the Netherlands on Saturday and Turkish officials then closed off the Dutch Embassy and called its ambassador no longer welcome, sinking relations even deeper in the diplomatic standoff over plans by Turkish officials to address political rallies in Europe.
About 1,000 pro-Turkish protesters gathered outside their country’s consulate in Rotterdam after Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was prevented from entering it after traveling to the Netherlands from Germany.
She insisted the “Netherlands is violating all international laws, conventions and human rights by not letting me enter.” Early Sunday, NOS network showed pictures of a woman, protesting, being taken to another car, amid media reports the minister was being taken back to Germany.
Turkey’s state-run news agency later said the minister had left the consulate area, escorted by police.
The mayor of Rotterdam issued an emergency order late Saturday in an attempt to contain a pro-Turkish demonstration which has turned into a flashpoint of the quickly deteriorating relations. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said he needed special powers to assure security throughout the center of the city fearing that more people would join the demonstration and there was “serious concern” that riots might ensue.
The Dutch first withdrew the landing rights of the foreign minister because of objections to his intention to attend a rally in Rotterdam for a Turkish referendum on constitutional reforms to expand presidential powers, which the Dutch see as a step backward from democracy.
Erdogan told a rally in Istanbul that the Dutch “do not know politics or international diplomacy.” He compared them to “Nazi remnants, they are fascists.”
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it “a crazy remark, of course. But I understand they are angry but this is of course way out of line.”
Erdogan had earlier this month already compared German policies to “Nazi practices,” after German municipalities canceled several campaign events by Turkish officials last weekend.
He told a rally in Istanbul Saturday: “You can stop our foreign minister’s plane all you want, let’s see how your (diplomatic) planes will come to Turkey from now on.” Cavusoglu also referred to possible sanctions, and Rutte said consultations under such threats were impossible, forcing him to bar the visit.
The government said it withdrew the permission because of “risks to public order and security,” causing Cavusoglu to say: “so is the foreign minister of the Turkishrepublicaterrorist?”
In the evening, a Turkish foreign ministry official who spoke on customary anonymity said the Dutch Embassy in Ankara and its consulate in Istanbul were closed off because of security reasons. The official said entries and exits were closed to the two locations. Similar precautions were taken at the Dutch charge d’affaires’ house and the ambassador’s residence.
The Turkish foreign ministry also said that it doesn’t want to see the Dutch ambassador, who is out of the country, return to his post for some time because of the increasingly divisive dispute with the Netherlands.