ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that he had told his foreign ministry to expel the ambassadors of the United States and nine other Western countries for interfering in Turkey’s internal affairs.
Erdogan declared the ambassadors “personae non grata” over their joint call on Ankara for the release of Osman Kavala, a civil society leader.
Kavala, 64, faces a series of charges linked to 2013 anti-government protests and a coup attempt in 2016.
On Monday, the ambassadors of Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and the United States, in a joint statement, called on the Turkish government to offer a just and speedy resolution to Kavala’s case.
Erdogan said he asked the foreign ministry to expel the said ambassadors from the country. “I gave the necessary order to our foreign minister and said what must be done: These 10 ambassadors must be declared personae non grata at once. You will sort it out immediately,” the Turkish president said in a speech in the city of Eskisehir in northwest Turkey.
“They will know and understand Turkey. The day they do not know and understand Turkey, they will leave,” Erdogan said to cheers from the crowd.
Hours after the release of the joint statement by the Western ambassadors on Monday, Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul also decried the statement, saying “no ambassador had the right to make a recommendation or suggestion to our courts.”
“It is this ignorance of limits and boundaries that throws a shadow over the rule of law,” Gul further said on Twitter.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu also said on Monday, “It is not acceptable for ambassadors to make a recommendation or suggestion to the judiciary for an ongoing case.”
“Your recommendation and suggestion throws a shadow over your understanding of law and democracy,” Soylu tweeted.