*ADDS COMMENTS FROM MORE TURKISH OFFICIALS
ANTALYA, Turkey (AA) – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed the Dutch authorities on Saturday for banning his Rotterdam rally scheduled for next week.
The rally for Turkey’s April 16 referendum on constitutional changes was banned Friday.
“They say ‘You cannot hold a rally in a public space.’ What do you mean we cannot? Where is the democracy or the freedom of speech you claim to have been giving us a lesson on? What about the freedom of assembly?” said Cavusoglu during a meeting in the southern province of Antalya.
“The Netherlands is not a place for other countries’ election rallies,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Facebook on Friday. “We will not cooperate with this. We find this undesirable.”
“We believe that the Dutch public space is not the place for political campaigns of other countries,” he added.
Cavusoglu said the Netherlands could not hold back Turkish officials. “We go wherever we want, and meet with our citizens,” he added.
Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli also criticized the move, saying the Netherlands and Germany — which also banned similar rallies of Turkish officials earlier this week — had joined the ranks of the ‘No’ campaigners, which he said included the terrorist PKK group, opposition Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), Republican People’s Party (CHP), and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the mastermind of last July’s coup attempt.
Culture Minister Nabi Avci called the rally bans a “dangerous development”.
“I hope they will come to their senses soon and remember the past tragedies caused by xenophobia and similar phobias,” he said.
On Thursday, the municipality of Gaggenau in southwest Germany revoked its permission for Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag’s meeting, citing concerns about overcrowding.
This prompted Bozdag to cancel his planned visit to Germany altogether.
Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci’s planned address on Sunday to a Turkish community in western city of Cologne was also cancelled by local authorities over security concerns.
