Netherlands will have to pay a price for hurting Turkish interests

Istanbul : Turkish President Erdoğan has threatened they will make Netherlands pay a heavy price for its decision of putting their relationship with Turkey at stake due to the upcoming elections The Netherland government had sent back the ministers in the Turkish Government by denying permission for rallies. The Turkish President has warned Netherlands blaming that it is abusive to send back the ministers this way. Also strong reactions have evoked for accusing Germany along with Netherlands.

A referendum is planned In the month of April in Turkey, to convert Turkey into ’President of Republic’. This will give unrestricted rights to the President right from the parliament up to the judicial system. The Presidential tenure is also planned to be extended and the current President Erdoğan is using all his strength for making it happen. Efforts are being made to persuade people of Turkish origin who are residing in Europe to support this referendum.

According to Turkey’s constitution, people of Turkish origin residing in other countries have rights to vote in the referendum. Current statistics shows that 5.5 million Turks are residing outside Turkey. Since this number is significant for the referendum’s result, attempts are in hand to persuade this critical number to support the referendum. Turks in large numbers are residing in Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France and Sweden. In order to make them participate in the referendum, the Turkish Ministers are running campaigns and for that large number of meetings are planned.

However, on Saturday, the government of Netherlands returned back two such Turkish Ministers refusing them permission to hold propaganda meetings. These included Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Family Planning Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya. The Turkish President being enraged by the return of their ministers without getting entry in the country has furiously criticized Netherlands.

“Elections are to be held on coming Wednesday in Netherlands and if for these elections the Netherland government is willing to put the relationship between Turkey and Netherlands at stake, then they will have to pay a heavy price” warns President Erdoğan. At the same time, Erdoğan made serious allegations saying that Netherlands understands nothing about politics or international relations, infact they are supporters of Nazism and Fascism.

These allegations from Erdoğan received a distinct reaction from not only top countries like Germany and Netherlands but from Europe too. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has strongly criticized Erdoğan saying that these words are foolish and that Netherlands does not wish to maintain relationships with countries that threaten and resort to blackmail. The German leaders too have warned Turkey to be careful while making remarks. Whereas Austria has said that they would never welcome the Turkish President. Denmark has requested the Turkish President to postpone his visit, also the meetings of the Turkish leaders in Sweden have been cancelled.