Turkey Raises Objections to Rasmussen’s NATO Bid as New Secretary General
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised objections Friday to his Danish counterpart’s possible nomination for NATO’s top job, citing lingering Muslim anger over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
In an interview with NTV television, Erdogan said he explained his objections to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen personally in a lengthy telephone conversation earlier Friday.
“I told him about the annoyance of the public” over his possible nomination for NATO secretary-general, Erdogan said.
“My party has principles… and I definitely cannot contradict them,” he said. “I told him he can appreciate what that means.”
Erdogan said he had received calls from the leaders of Islamic countries urging Turkey, NATO’s only predominantly Muslim member, to veto Rasmussen.
“There was serious indignation in Muslim countries because of the cartoon crisis. These countries are now calling us,” he said.
Rasmussen invoked freedom of expression to defend the publication of a series of irreverant cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in September 2005, which triggered outrage among Muslims worldwide.
Erdogan said Rasmussen had also failed to act on Turkish requests to ban a Denmark-based Kurdish TV station, widely seen as the mouthpiece of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.
“It has been four years now and they have not finalised the issue… We are seriously disturbed,” he said.
However, President Abdullah Gul had suggested earlier Friday that Turkey would not block Rasmussen’s nomination, saying that Ankara does not have “any attitude against the prime minister or anyone else on that matter.”
Rasmussen is a favourite to take over NATO’s top civilian post from Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in August, with most of the alliance’s big powers solidly behind him, but Turkey is seen as a key obstacle.
NATO leaders meet in Strasbourg, France and neighbouring Kehl in Germany on April 3-4 for a 60th anniversary summit, but it is unclear whether the next secretary general of the 26-nation alliance will be announced there.