Turkey, a member of NATO, has continued to threaten its allies.
Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that “Holy wars will soon begin in Europe,” and that same day the country’s interior minister said, “If you want, we could open the way for 15,000 refugees that we don’t send each month and blow the mind” of Europe.
On Friday, Turkish President Recip Tayyib Erdogan told Turkish immigrants in Europe to have five kids instead of three and state-aligned newspaper Sun depicted German chancellor Angela Merkel as Adolf Hitler.
The harsh comments from the Turkish government towards European nations came after the Netherlands refused to allow a Turkish official in the country who planned to stage a pro-Erdogan rally. Turkey subsequently told Holland’s ambassador to the nation to not return from a trip for “some time.”
This criticism of NATO allies is not new to the Erdogan regime. In January, Erdogan said the U.S. founded ISIS and a lawmaker who is part of the president’s party said the CIA was behind a terrorist attack at an Istanbul nightclub. A State Department official told TheDC at the time, “We note with concern that Turkish media and Turkish officials have made incendiary and false accusations that the United States in some way facilitated this attack.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to visit Turkey on March 30.