Erdogan slams Dutch over Srebrenica as diplomatic row intensifies
The diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the Netherlands shows no signs of letting up, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening the Netherlands with sanctions and reporting it to the European Court of Human Rights.
The war of words between Turkey and the Netherlands shows no sign of abating with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the Dutch Nazi "gorillas” and “spineless and ignoble.”
Erdogan told an audience in Ankara today, “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.” He was referring to the alleged complicity of Dutch United Nations peacekeepers with Serb militia in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslim Bosnian men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serbs at the height of the civil war in 1995.
The row between Turkey and the Netherlands erupted over the weekend after Dutch authorities, citing security concerns, denied Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu landing rights for a visit to promote voting in favor of the referendum on a super-presidency among the estimated 400,000 Turks who live there. Tensions boiled over when Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, Turkey’s minister for family affairs, was deported late Saturday night after making her way overland from Germany to Rotterdam.
Turkey announced a smattering of toothless sanctions yesterday to protest the Dutch government's actions, including denying re-entry to the Dutch ambassador to Ankara, freezing all diplomatic communication and demanding a formal apology. Ankara is also threatening to take its case to the European Court of Human Rights. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who is seeking re-election in parliamentary polls March 15, said that the sanction were not “too bad,” but also stated that it was Erdogan who should apologize, for drawing parallels between his country and the Nazis.
