Addressing Turkey’s diplomatic corps on the country’s international priorities, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on top diplomats to “defend Turkish citizens’ rights” in the face of growing hostility toward “Muslims and Turks” in Western countries. 

Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s annual ambassadors' conference Monday, the president said that “cultural racism” was on the rise globally, particularly in Western countries. “Insulting women wearing headscarves in the middle of streets, burning our sacred book Quran under police protection, leaving a severed pig’s head at our mosques … all these examples lay bare the frightening dimensions of Islamophobia,” he said, referring to reported cases in Sweden, Austria and Germany. The Turkish president also charged that some European countries were shutting down associations and mosques with “flimsy excuses.” 

“I expect you to stand by our people more firmly and defend our citizens’ rights and dignity determinedly under all circumstances. We should find a way to neutralize the increasingly intensifying pressure on associations and mosques through political and legal channels,” the president told ambassadors. 

With the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections high on his agenda, Erdogan urged the country’s representatives abroad to ensure that Turks eligible to vote could easily reach a ballot box and that Gulenists and other “terrorist groups” would not be able to undermine the elections. The request is crucial: Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) count on the vote of Turks who live abroad in an election that promises to be a tight race. Though only half of the Turks abroad voted in the last elections in 2018, one out of each voter who cast their vote at the foreign representations or Turkish border posts voted for the AKP. The campaign zeal, however, may occasionally lead to diplomatic clashes. In 2017, ahead of a referendum that expanded presidential powers, the AKP’s aggressive campaigning and attempts to hold large rallies in various European cities created a diplomatic crisis with the Netherlands.