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A man pulls a cart in front of a huge portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Taksim Square in Istanbul on March 15, 2017. Photo: BULENT KILIC / AFP

ISATANBUL - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday said the EU has started a crusade against Islam with a ruling on Islamic headscarves and warned the Netherlands that Ankara was no longer a friend, in a worsening diplomatic crisis.

Turkey and the European Union are locked in their most explosive row in years after key EU members Germany and the Netherlands blocked Turkish ministers from holding rallies to win support for expanding Erdogan's powers in a referendum.

Ankara has expressed dismay over the rise of the anti-immigrant far-right in Europe but on Wednesday showed no pleasure over the election win of liberal Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, with the crisis showing no sign of abating.

READ:Dutch warn citizens in Turkey amid diplomatic tensions

Erdogan accused the EU's top court of starting a "crusade" against Islam after a ruling that allows European companies to ban employees from wearing religious or political symbols including the Islamic headscarf.

"The European Union's court, the European Court of Justice, my esteemed brothers, have started a crusade struggle against the (Muslim) crescent," Erdogan said in a televised speech.

"Europe is swiftly rolling back to the days before World War II," he added.

'Rutte same as Wilders'

In Wednesday's elections, Dutch voters returned Rutte's liberals to power seeing off a challenge from the party of anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders.

READ:Dutch far-right challenge falters as Rutte victorious

But with the acrimony that followed the blocking by the Dutch of Turkish ministers from holding political rallies still raging, Ankara said it saw no difference between the Dutch parties.

"Hey Rutte! You may have emerged as the number one party in the election but you must know that you have lost Turkey as your friend," Erdogan said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier said there was "no difference" between the ruling Dutch liberals and the "fascist" Wilders.

Cavusoglu also predicted that "religious wars" will start in Europe due to the rise of the far right, saying the continent was being taken "to the cliff".

'Unacceptable remarks'

Erdogan has enflamed the row by repeatedly accusing Dutch and German politicians of acting like "Nazis". On Wednesday, he claimed the "spirit of fascism" was rampant in Europe.

Analysts say the Turkish strongman wants to be seen as standing up strongly to Europe in order to sweep up nationalist votes ahead of the April 16 referendum on the constitutional changes expanding his powers.

But his volcanic rhetoric has not gone down well in the EU and has raised questions about the continuation of Turkey's half century long bid to join the bloc.

The French and German leaders on Thursday condemned Erdogan's "unacceptable" remarks.

Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel "consider comparisons with Nazism and aggressive statements against Germany and other member states unacceptable", they said in a joint statement after speaking by telephone, the French president's office said.

'Implement migrant deal'

Turkey has also raised alarm in Brussels by threatening to unilaterally scrap a March 2016 deal that has substantially reduced the flow of migrants and refugees to the EU.

"We can stop it (the deal) unilaterally. We have not yet informed our (EU) counterparts, all of this is in our hands," Cavusoglu told 24 TV in an interview.

"From now on, we can say 'we will not apply it and it will be over'," he added.

READ:UN accuses Turkey security forces of serious abuses

He lambasted the EU for failing to allow Turks visa-free travel in return for the deal, an incentive that had been promised to Turkey if it fulfilled its side of the bargain.

The deal has been praised for preventing a repeat of the surge of migrants into Europe seen in 2015 that fanned the rise of the far-right.

The EU Commission said that it expected Turkey to implement the accord.

"This is an engagement of mutual trust and delivery and we expect that both sides will comply with their commitments," spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters.

Cavusoglu said Turkey was no longer implementing a key part of the deal, whereby it took back migrants who landed on the Greek islands as a deterrent.

AFP

15 March 2017

The EU comments came as Dutch voters went to the polls in a key test of right-wing populist strength ahead of elections in France and Germany later this year.

19 February 2017

Turkish officials repeated none of the gloom that some EU leaders expressed after Donald Trump's election, instead hoping that he would open a new page in relations.

12 February 2017

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Islamophobia "is the best support that Daesh can have to make its own propaganda,"

Link:
'You have lost Turkey as a friend' Erdogan tells Dutch PM - eNCA

With high-level diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands already frozen, Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the Dutch for failing to prevent the killing of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims when Bosnian Serb forces overran the town in 1995. In a reference to Dutch United Nations peacekeepers who were on the ground and failed to prevent the mass killing, Erdogan said Tuesday: "We know the Dutch and the people in Holland from the massacre of Srebrenica. We know them, how they massacred people in Srebrenica full well. We don't need anyone to give us a lesson on civilization."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte responded to the remarks, accusing Erdogan of "a disgusting falsification of history."

In an interview with Dutch broadcaster RTL, Rutte said: "[Erdogan] continues to push the limits. This is of unbelievably low quality and style. We are not going to reduce ourselves to this level. This is very unacceptable and extremely irritating."

The Turkish president's incendiary comments -- made during a speech in Ankara -- came amid an escalating row sparked by Turkish officials being blocked from addressing political rallies in the Netherlands.

Shortly after Cavusoglu was refused entry, the Dutch stopped Turkey's Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. She was later escorted out of the country.

Violent clashes erupted after the action against the two ministers who had hoped to drum up support for an April 16 referendum to give greater powers to Erdogan.

Erdogan has already made angry remarks against the Dutch since the incidents in Rotterdam -- comparing the current government to Nazis.

The Netherlands lost more than 200,000 of its citizens when it was occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II and Rutte has demanded an apology.

On Monday, Turkey announced that it would not allow the Dutch ambassador to Ankara to return to Turkey and suspended high-level diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The growing tensions come ahead of the Dutch general election on Wednesday; far-right candidate Geert Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV) is expected to make a strong showing.

Erdogan also implored Dutch voters of immigrant backgrounds not to cast their ballots for Wilders, who he described as an "extreme racist" or Prime Minister Rutte in Wednesday's election.

CNN's Rosalyn Saab, James Gray and Schams Elwazer also contributed to this report.

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Erdogan blames Dutch for Srebrenica - CNN.com

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe's worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: "We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan's comments, calling them a "disgusting distortion of history."

"We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable," Rutte told Dutch broadcaster RTL Z.

It was the latest in Erdogan's war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign for an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers, courting the votes of eligible Turks in the Netherlands.

Around 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

The Turkish leader previously called the Netherlands "Nazi remnants" and also accused it of "fascism."

Earlier, Turkey criticized the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in the row. In a statement Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the EU's stance on Turkey was "short-sighted" and "carried no value" for Turkey, as well as lending "credence" to extremists.

The ministry argued that the European bloc had "ignored the (Netherlands') violation of diplomatic conventions and the law" after Dutch authorities escorted the Turkish family affairs minister out of the country and denied the foreign minister permission to land.

The diplomatic spat between the two countries escalated swiftly with Erdogan making several Nazi comparisons with EU member states Germany and the Netherlands. The EU has called on Turkey to cease "excessive statements."

The fight has raised concerns that cooperation between the EU and Turkey on a number of issues, such as dealing with the flow of migrants from war-torn Syria, may start to fray.

The tensions spilled over into the parliamentary election the Netherlands will be holding on Wednesday. The Dutch-Turkish leader of a pro-migrant political party pulled out of an election eve debate in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

National broadcaster NOS says Tunahan Kuzu of the Denk (Think) party he did not want to appear on the same stage as a right-wing populist.

During the nationally televised debate, the right-wing candidate, Jan Roos later called Kuzu a "lapdog of (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan" and his absence "cowardly and contemptuous of democracy."

On Monday, Turkey slapped a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish airspace to Dutch diplomats. Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps "to redress" the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

Erdogan said Tuesday there could be more sanctions but did not elaborate. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci as saying economic sanctions "could come to the agenda in the period ahead."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, pledging her full support and solidarity with the Dutch and saying the Nazi jibes were unacceptable.

Erdogan responded angrily to Merkel's support for the Netherlands, exclaiming "Shame on you!" during a television interview on Monday. On Tuesday, Erdogan described both Germany and the Netherlands as "bandit states" that were harming the European Union.

Merkel has refrained from reacting to Erdogan.

"The chancellor has no intention of participating in the race of provocations," Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said late Monday. "She won't play along. The accusations are recognizably absurd."

Responding to another charge by Erdogan that Germany supported terror groups in Turkey German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said his country did not need "extra tuition" from Ankara on fighting terrorism.

Also Monday, the German Foreign Ministry amended its travel advice for Turkey, noting that "elevated political tensions and protests that could also be directed against Germany" should be expected during the referendum campaign. It recommended that travelers stay away from political events and large gatherings of people.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Rotterdam said that specialized armed security forces he sent to a standoff with Turkish Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya on Saturday night had permission to open fire, if necessary.

Speaking late Monday night on a television talk show, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said he sent the special armed intervention unit to the Turkish consulate amid fears that a 12-man security detail that had driven to the Netherlands from Germany with the minister could be armed.

Aboutaleb said it was important to "be sure that if it came to a confrontation that we would be the boss" and that the unit had been given "permission to shoot."

The Turkish minister was eventually escorted out of the Netherlands in the early hours of Sunday.

Earlier, the Dutch also had refused Turkey's foreign minister permission to visit. Both ministers wanted to address rallies about next month's constitutional reform referendum on giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte repeated Tuesday the last day of campaigning for Dutch elections that have been overshadowed by the diplomatic crisis that Dutch authorities are working to de-escalate tensions with Ankara.

Associated Press writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

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Turkey's Erdogan renews war of words on Netherlands - ABC News

Rotterdam (Netherlands) (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said a Dutch ban on his foreign minister's visit was like Nazism, as tensions rocketed over rallies abroad to help Ankara gain backing for a key vote.

His comments came after the Netherlands said it would refuse Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu permission to land for a rally to gather support for a referendum on boosting Erdogan's powers.

The Dutch decision to ban Cavusoglu from visiting and holding a rally in the port city of Rotterdam came after Germany and other European nations also blocked similar campaign events.

Unlike in Germany, where a string of planned rallies were barred by local authorities, in the Netherlands it was the government that stepped in to block Cavusoglu's visit.

"They are the vestiges of the Nazis, they are fascists," Erdogan told an Istanbul rally Saturday, days after he angrily compared moves to block rallies in Germany to "Nazi practices".

"Ban our foreign minister from flying however much you like, but from now on let's see how your flights will land in Turkey," Erdogan said.

Around 1,000 people waving Turkish flags protested outside the consulate in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on Saturday evening, watched by a large police presence.

Turkey's Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya appeared at the scene after reportedly travelling overland from Germany, but Turkish TV said she was stopped by Dutch police some 30 metres (yards) short of the consulate.

"We've been here for about four hours. We were not even offered water," she told the NTV television channel. "(Dutch) police are not allowing me to enter the consulate. "

"I was told to leave the country and return to Germany as soon as possible," she added. "I will not leave unless I am allowed to meet even for five minutes with our citizens."

The Dutch public broadcaster NOS said police were planning to escort Kaya back to the border with Germany. Police would not confirm anything to AFP.

- Cavusoglu flies to France -

Cavusoglu flew to France where he is expected to address a rally Sunday in the eastern city of Metz. A French official said the visit had been cleared by the foreign ministry in Paris.

As the row raged, Turkish foreign ministry sources said the Dutch embassy in Ankara and consulate in Istanbul had both been sealed off for "security reasons".

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Erdogan's criticism was "crazy."

"I understand that they are angry but this is way out of line," he said. "I really think we made the right decision here."

Cavusoglu, speaking in Istanbul, said the ban was "unacceptable".

"Why are you taking sides in the referendum?" he said, adding: "Is the foreign minister of Turkey a terrorist?"

The Turkish foreign ministry said the Dutch charge d'affaires in Ankara was summoned and told that Turkey did not want the Dutch ambassador -- currently on holiday -- to return "for a while".

The Netherlands is home to some 400,000 people of Turkish origin, and Ankara is keen to harness votes of the diaspora in Europe ahead of the April 16 referendum on creating an executive presidency.

The Turkish government argues the changes would ensure stability and create more efficient governance but opponents say it would lead to one-man rule and further inflame tensions in its diverse society.

- Backlash threat -

Erdogan accused the Netherlands of working against the "Yes" campaign and said: "Pressure however much you like. Abet terrorists in your country however much you like.

"It will backlash, and there's no doubt that we'll start retaliating after April 16... We are patient. Whoever is patient will reach victory."

Dutch far-right anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders celebrated the government's ban, attributing it to "heavy PVV pressure", in a reference to his party, which appears set to emerge as one of the largest in elections to the Dutch parliament on Wednesday.

The latest row came after NATO allies Turkey and Germany sparred over the cancellation of a series of referendum campaign events there.

Germany is home to 1.4 million people eligible to vote in Turkey -- the fourth-largest electoral base after Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

Although Berlin insisted that the string of cancellations by local authorities were down to logistical reasons, Turkish officials repeatedly hit back, leading to Erdogan's angry "Nazi" remark.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said such rhetoric was "depressing", belittled Holocaust victims and was "so out of place as to be unworthy of serious comment".

Berlin has emerged as a strident critic of Ankara's crackdown after an attempted coup last July, which has seen more than 100,000 people arrested, suspended from their jobs or sacked for alleged links to the plotters or to Kurdish militants.

Read more from the original source:
Erdogan compares Dutch rally ban to Nazism as row spirals

A man pulls a cart in front of a portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Taksim Square in Istanbul on March 15, 2017.

Politicians in Turkey and the European Union stoking tensions for short-term electoral gain may have done lasting damage to vital economic and security ties.

While relations between the EU and Turkey have been rocky for years, the furor of recent days -- with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan freely hurling the Nazi epithet at his western antagonists -- marks a rift that could prove irreparable. Turkey has been negotiating EU membership since 2005, but progress has come close to a halt.

Even without anyone saying it, Turkeys EU membership talks will go into an irreversible coma now, said Marc Pierini, who served as the EUs ambassador to Turkey from 2006-2011 and is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based think tank. That will suit everybody, except Turkeys democrats.

Simmering tensions between the NATO allies boiled over when bitter campaigns were added to the mix last weekend. Dutch officials prevented Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from landing his plane to seek support among expatriates, expelled another cabinet minister from the country and quelled the ensuing protests by Dutch Turks. That prompted Erdogans denunciations.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte faced voters Wednesday, in which the anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders was his biggest challenger. Rutte took a tough line with Turkey and last-minute opinion polls suggest that was what voters wanted to see.

For his part, Erdogan is trying to rally support for constitutional changes to be voted on April 16. On Monday, a report by the Council of Europes legal watchdog, the Venice Commission, attacked the changes as anti-democratic, warning that the amendments would create a presidential system with no meaningful separation of powers and risk authoritarian rule.

Erdogans denunciations of the Netherlands, Germany and the EU as a whole as fascist has drowned those criticisms and rallied Turkish nationalists behind him. Even the main opposition, the Republican Peoples Party, has backed him. On Wednesday,hackers hijacked the Twitter accounts of major European news organizations and European Parliament legislators, posting swastikas and messages in support of Erdogan.

The harshness of Erdogans rhetoric will make any pretense at restoring the kind of EU-Turkish partnership that existed a decade ago difficult, if not impossible. At the same time, the rise of anti-Muslim populists such as Wilders and Frances Marine Le Pen is pushing even mainstream European parties to adopt some of their policies, turning any outreach to predominantly Muslim Turkey into a political liability.

Turkish officials appear to agree that a growing divide over values now separates the EU and Turkey.

It goes beyond a mere diplomatic spat and is symptomatic of a deeper problem, wrote Ibrahim Kalin, senior adviser and spokesman for Erdogan, in a Turkish newspaper column published March 14. European politicians are giving in to the type of racist and anti-Muslim populism that undermines the core values of democracy, civility, multiculturalism and human rights.

Pierini sees a wider clash between two populisms -- one anti-Muslim in Europe, and the other fighting for the Islamization of the secular Turkish Republic -- that risks an uncontrolled downward spiral. Europes leaders, he said, are losing sight of the fundamentals, that you have a counter-revolution going on in Turkey, where Erdogan is trying to reverse the westward course on which Mustafa Kemal Ataturk set the country in 1923.

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Hanging in the balance is a deal struck a year ago, under which Turkey agreed to cooperate in stemming the flow of refugees from Syria. In exchange, the EU provided more than $3 billion in economic aid and pledges both to re-energize Turkeys stalled membership talks and deliver visa-free travel for Turks entering the 26-nation Schengen area, both of which are increasingly politically toxic for EU leaders.

On Monday, Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik said Turkey might rethink the deal, while Erdogan has in the past threatened to bus refugees to the Bulgarian and Greek borders. Deputy Prime Minister Nurman Kurtulmus also this week threatened the Netherlands with the possibility of economic sanctions in the future.

The key question is whether we can sever political ties without damaging the economic ones, and I dont think we can,said Atilla Yesilada, Istanbul-based adviser to GlobalSource Partners, an economic consultancy.

In 2016, 60 percent of the goods Turkey exported to the rest of the world went to the EU. Europe also provides at least two-thirds of foreign direct investment in Turkey as well as many of its tourists. Growth was negative in the last reported quarter, and on Wednesday, the government published the worst budget deficit and unemployment figures since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Im not saying Erdogan cant do it, but I think its a bluff, said Yesilada. We need to sell our textiles and other goods to Europe, because we arent a resource economy. Turkey just isnt Russia.

Read the rest here:
Erdogan and Europe Head for Political Blow-Up They Can't Afford - Bloomberg