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Sunday, March 12, 2017

Dutch PM wants apology for Turkish leader Erdogan's 'Nazi' claim

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has demanded an apology after Turkey's president compared his country's behaviour to "Nazism".

Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to retaliate after two of his ministers were prevented from holding rallies for some of the 400,000 Turks living in the Netherlands.

Mr Erdogan is looking to gain support from them and other Turks in Europe ahead of the 16 April referendum that could give him sweeping new powers, a response to last year's attempted coup.

But the Dutch authorities view the referendum as a step away from democracy and have told Ankara to keep its ministers away.

Turkish family affairs minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was prevented from speaking at a rally in Rotterdam, and The Hague refused to allow a plane carrying foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to land ahead of a planned rally.

Mr Erdogan was speaking at a ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday when he said: "Hey Holland! If you are sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations for the sake of the elections on Wednesday, you will pay a price."

He had said on Saturday that the Dutch behaviour over the Turkish visits was "Nazism" and "fascism", adding that the Dutch "will pay the price of treating my citizens, my foreign minister... in an impudent way".

And he said the Netherlands was acting like a "banana republic".

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