Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week visited Russian Federation on his first foreign trip since a failed military coup on July 15. The unease has relations between Turkey and Austria and Sweden.
Advertisement
A Foreign Ministry official said the Austrian charge d’affaires was called to the ministry on Saturday for an official complaint about the “distorted” headline which appeared on a screen at the airport the same day.
Since the coup, more than 17,000 people have been placed under formal arrest, and tens of thousands more suspended from their jobs.
Turkey’s current definition of terrorism includes non-violent political activities that can be exploited by the authorities to jail dissident journalists and academics. In return for accepting migrants returned from Greece, the European Union promised Turkey visa-free travel to the bloc’s Schengen area if Ankara met certain benchmarks.
Turkey’s constitutional court in July annulled a criminal code provision punishing as “sexual abuse” all sexual acts involving children under the age of 15, responding to a petition brought by a lower court.
The 7-6 ruling by the panel of judges, which is to take effect in January 2017, stirred outrage on Turkish social media and among women’s rights activists, who voiced concern that it would lead to cases of child abuses going unpunished.
“It’s a scandal for a foreign minister to write such a tweet based on false news or speculation”, said a furious Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Turkish TV interview. “Children need more protection, not less, against violence, sex abuse”, Wallstrom’s tweeted on Sunday on her official account.
“This [Austrian] headline tarnishes the image of Turkey, and is false”, a Turkish diplomat said after his Austrian counterpart was summoned to the ministry.
Cavusoglu dismissed her comments as “the result of racism and anti-Islam sentiment in Europe …”
Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern has said the European Union should end accession talks with Turkey, prompting Cavusoglu to refer to Austria as the “capital of radical racism”.
Turkey has accused European allies of not providing the elected government sufficient support in the face of the attempted coup or its bid to move against the coup plotters. Turkey, in turn, has described Austria as the “capital of radical racism”.
Advertisement
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told the country’s news agency TT: “For our part it’s important to express what we believe in”.
