Hurriyet - Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said March 11 that if the
Netherlands cancels permit for his flight to the country later in the
day, Turkey would impose sanctions.
"Now there is the
Netherlands. Dutch [nationalist politician Geert] Wilders acts like a
Nazi. He threatens the foreign minister of the Turkish Republic with not
letting the airplane take off. But I will go today,” said Çavuşoğlu
during a live interview with private broadcaster CNNTürk on March 11.
"If
the Netherlands cancels my flight clearance today then we will impose
huge sanctions,” he said, adding that times had passed when foreign
countries thought Turkey would not react to whatever they did.
Relations
between Germany, Austria and the Netherlands on the one hand and Turkey
on the other soured over Turkey’s planned "meeting with citizens”
campaign events ahead of the April 16 referendum, during which a package
of constitutional amendments will be voted upon.
Germany,
Austria and the Netherlands have canceled such scheduled events to be
attended by Turkish ministers in their own countries usually on grounds
of security reasons. A large amount of Turkish citizens or people with
Turkish heritage live in these countries and Turkish citizens living
abroad have the right to vote in elections and referenda.
On March 9, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that they do not want Çavuşoğlu to hold rallies.
"This is the most serious thing we can do, to tell the foreign affairs minister of a NATO ally: ‘We know you will come to the Netherlands: Don’t come,’” he said.
Rutte
added that the local authorities would be unlikely to authorize any
rally Çavuşoğlu would attend. "And if you still decide to come, you
won’t have a chauffeur driven car, no escort, no support,” he said,
adding that while "there are people who will say, ‘you have to arrest
him at Schiphol,’ we will stop just short of that.”
سایت تابناک از انتشار نظرات حاوی توهین و افترا و نوشته شده با حروف لاتین (فینگیلیش) معذور است.