Erdogan aide slams Swiss rally's 'anti-Turkey paranoia'

By Sibel Ugurlu

ANKARA (AA) – A top presidential aide Tuesday lashed out at a Swiss rally of supporters of the terrorist PKK that openly called for the murder of Turkey’s president, asking, “Has the anti-Turkey animus and the anti-Erdogan paranoia really reached this level of insanity?”

“On March 25, Switzerland joined the anti-Turkey chorus by allowing an openly pro-terror rally in Bern [Switzerland]. Supporters of the outlawed PKK not only held a ‘no’ rally against the constitutional referendum to be held in Turkey on April 16 but also displayed posters propagating terrorism,” wrote presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin in his column in Turkish daily Sabah.

“One poster had a picture of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a gun pointed at his head with the words ‘Kill Erdogan’,” he added.

“Since when has it become normal in a European country to call for the murder of a president? Has the anti-Turkey animus and the anti-Erdogan paranoia really reached this level of insanity?”

Kalin decried European democracies allowing terrorist groups “to operate in their midst in the first place,” asking: “Who can defend an outlawed terrorist organization's activities as freedom of speech or assembly? Is not a gun pointed at an elected president also a threat directed at European values?”

Pointing to the No campaigns supported by some European politicians, Kalin said some European state media outlets also broadcast biased programs to promote the No side.

“Why? Is that because they really care about Turkey or is there something else here?” Kalin asked.

Kalin said if these European countries really cared about Turkey, they would have taken a “clear and unambiguous stance” after the July 2016 coup attempt, supported Turkey’s fight against terrorism, and made a serious effort to move the EU accession process forward.

Led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) is accused of orchestrating the July 15 coup plot -- which left 249 people martyred and some 2,200 injured -- as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and the judiciary.

- ‘Deflecting’ Europe’s problems

Kalin argued that European countries “see President Erdogan and Turkey as an ‘other’ through which to deflect their internal problems onto a distant and imaginary enemy.”

“They turn their distorted image of the Turks into ‘barbarians’ so that they feel good about themselves and get away with such real problems as rising xenophobia, unemployment, inequality, domestic violence, crude individualism, racism, sexism, class struggle, multiculturalism, and the overall weakening of Europe as an idea,” he added.

“Turning Turkey into a hostile ‘other’ may bring in short-term gains for political opportunists and far-right racists in Europe,” Kalin wrote, “but it neither solves Europe's own problems nor provides a political and moral roadmap for the future.”

Kalin said Europe’s stance against Turkey “only deepens the sense of mistrust that is already poisoning relations between Turkey and Europe on the one hand and Islamic and Western societies on the other.”

Kalin criticized Europe for “promoting democracy in Turkey” while at the same time “allowing scores of anti-Turkey groups and individuals including outright terrorists to use European soil as a launching pad to attack Turkey every single day.”

“This collision course must be rejected by Europe's mainstream political leaders who care about the future of Europe and its place in the world,” Kalin said, arguing that a relationship between Turkey and Europe based on trust, mutual interest, equality, and respect is necessary.

“There is enough social and political capital and economic benefit to making such a relationship work.”