Turkey has suspended its diplomatic relations with the Netherlands and the Dutch ambassador to Ankara was told not to return from home leave, Anadolu reported Monday, quoting Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.
The move comes in retaliation for the Netherlands government expelling a Turkish minister and refusing entry to another.
On Saturday, the Dutch government cancelled the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s permit to enter the Netherlands, then sent Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya out of the country under police escort.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is driving an April referendum to expand his executive powers. To that end, Erdogan has been trying to rally the estimated 4.6 million expatriate Turks living in Western Europe to vote for him in the referendum. But European states, such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and now the Netherlands, have been resisting Turkish efforts to campaign on their soil.
This week’s clash comes against the background of a Dutch general elections pitting an anti-Muslim candidate against the incumbent prime minister. As Western Europe is tilting hard to the right, asking the Dutch government to tolerate Turkish propaganda at such a time is tantamount to asking it to cut its own throat.
DPM Kurtulmus told reporters that the Dutch government’s conduct “is unacceptable by any standards. […] This tension, this crisis, this chaos – whatever you call it – it is not us who caused it.”
Kurtulmus also threatened openly that “it is the Netherlands and many other European countries that will bear the brunt” of the current crisis.
Kurtulmus threatened a review of the EU-Turkey refugee deal, and Turkey’s EU minister has called for reconsideration of how his country will deal with refugees who try to enter Europe through its borders.