Turkey: Honorary consuls of nine countries ‘criticized’ for criticizing Erdogan’s government

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has announced the removal of nine honorary consuls from their posts.

According to Ahval, the consuls whose diplomas were revoked by the Foreign Ministry are the honorary consuls of Sweden in Antalya, Britain in Mugla, Belgium and Austria in Izmir, Romania in Iskenderun (Alexandre, Alexandria). of the Dominican Republic and Belize in Istanbul and Lithuania in Nevsehir.

The cancellation of their diplomatic identities, which had been issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, was announced in a letter sent to the ministry’s offices on October 12th. The issue came to light when the Swedish consulate in Istanbul published an announcement on its website last Wednesday.

“The Honorary Consul of Sweden in Antalya will not be able to provide consular services at this time due to the request of the Turkish authorities to terminate the term of the current Honorary Consul Nil Sağır, who has represented Sweden for a number of years and “whose term we had recently extended until 2025”, the announcement stated.

In a statement, Ms. Sağır said that her diplomatic ID was valid until 2023 and had recently been issued.

According to Sağır, the Swedish Foreign Ministry tried to overturn Turkey’s decision. “Unfortunately, with the prevailing political climate and everyone knows it, a positive result was not possible,” the former honorary consul added.

Sağır’s husband was one of the founding members of the center-right Good Party (İYİP), founded largely by former members of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the governing partner of the Tayyip’s AKP Development and Justice Party (AKP). .

One of the honorary consuls who saw the exit door spoke on condition of anonymity to the news site Al Monitor and said that the reason for the expulsion of the consuls was the criticism they had expressed against the Turkish government, in their speeches or through social media.

“I was informed that this happened because in my posts on social media I was criticizing the government,” he said, adding that all attempts to reverse the decision were met with a “vertical no”.

According to Al Monitor, the Turkish Foreign Minister five years ago had removed many consuls from office in the same way, in the aftermath of the coup attempt in 2016. Then the clearing was made in an attempt to uproot diplomats with rumored ties to , the priest to whom the Turkish government blames the failed coup.

In fact, according to Al Monitor, at that time the honorary consul of Belize, Mustafa Çıkrıkçıoğlu, had been detained for a short time, until he later clarified that he had nothing to do with the coup and the charges against him were dropped.

For his part, the honorary consul of Austria in Izmir, Mustafa Ülkü Caner, who served two decades in office, said that it was Turkey and not Austria that was responsible for his removal.

“I think this was because of my opposition to government policies,” Caner, who is a member of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Al Monitor.