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Turkish sanctions are 'bizarre', says Dutch PM amid diplomatic row

Mark Rutte says Turkey’s move to freeze contacts are inappropriate as Netherlands has more to be angry about

The Dutch PM Mark Rutte  described Turkish sanctions following the diplomatic clash as ‘not too bad’. Photograph: Remko de Waal/EPA

The Dutch prime minister has said that Turkish sanctions following a diplomatic clash were “not too bad” but were inappropriate as the Netherlands had more to be angry about.

The sanctions include freezing all diplomatic communication but no economic measures. Mark Rutte said: “I continue to find it bizarre that in Turkey they’re talking about sanctions when you see that we have reasons to be very angry about what happened this weekend.”

Tensions between the two countries, a dramatic escalation of Turkey’s row with EU states, broke out on Saturday when the Netherlands blocked two Turkish ministers from speaking at political rallies and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, twice referred to the Dutch government as “Nazis”.

Turkey followed on Monday with a suspension of high-level political contacts with the Netherlands and a threat to re-evaluate a key deal to halt the flow of migrants to Europe .

Numan Kurtulmuş, a deputy prime minister and chief government spokesman, said while announcing the sanctions that the Dutch ambassador, who is on leave, would not be allowed to return .

Turkey would also close its airspace to Dutch diplomats, Kursulmuş said, adding: “There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn’t create this crisis or bring it to this stage … Those creating this crisis are responsible for fixing it.”

The spokesman’s remarks came hours after Erdoğan defied pleas from Brussels to tone down his rhetoric, repeating accusations of European “nazism” and warning that his ministers would take their treatment by the Dutch to the European court of human rights.

Erdoğan also accused the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, of “supporting terrorists” and criticised her for backing the Dutch in the row over Turkish campaigning abroad before an April referendum on controversial plans to expand his powers.

“Mrs Merkel, why are you hiding terrorists in your country? … Why are you not doing anything?” Erdoğan said in an interview with Turkish television. He added that the position adopted by the Dutch and a number of other EU states amounted to nazism. “We can call this neo-nazism. A new nazism tendency.”

Merkel had earlier pledged her “full support and solidarity” to the Dutch, saying allegations made twice by Erdoğan this weekend that the Dutch government was acting like Nazis were “completely unacceptable”.

The Turkish remarks followed a request on Monday by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and enlargement commissioner, Johannes Hahn, for Ankara to “refrain from excessive statements and actions”.

The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the EU’s stance on Turkey was “short-sighted” and “carried no value” for Turkey. It said the EU had “ignored the violation of diplomatic conventions and the law”.

The threat made by Kurtulmuş to re-evaluate the deal the EU signed with Ankara in March 2016 – which has successfully curbed migration from Turkey to Greece, then onward into the rest of the bloc – will be seen as particularly alarming.

The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, all of which have large Turkish immigrant communities, have cited security and other concerns as reasons not to allow Turkish officials to campaign in their countries in favour of a referendum vote on 16 April to give Erdoğan expanded presidential powers. But with as many as 1.4 million Turkish voters in Germany alone, Erdoğan cannot afford to ignore the foreign electorate.

Austria’s chancellor, Christian Kern, called on Monday for an EU-wide ban on Turkish rallies, saying it would take pressure off individual countries. But Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, said he had doubts as to whether the bloc should collectively decide on a rally ban.

Analysts said the Turkish president was using the crisis to show voters that his strong leadership was needed against a Europe he routinely presents as hostile.

Erdoğan was “looking for ‘imagined’ foreign enemies to boost his nationalist base in the run-up to the referendum,” said Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Programme at the Washington Institute.

Marc Pierini, the EU’s former envoy to Turkey, said he saw no immediate solution to the crisis because “the referendum outcome in Turkey is very tight and the leadership will do everything to ramp up the nationalist narrative to garner more votes”.

The standoff has further strained relations already frayed over human rights, while repeated indications from Erdoğan that he could personally try to address rallies in EU countries risk further inflaming the situation.

The row also looks likely to dim further Turkey’s prospects of joining the EU, a process that has been under way for more than 50 years. “The formal end of accession negotiations with Turkey now looks inevitable,” the German commentator Daniel Brössler wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.