Turkey Backtracks on Threat to Expel Ambassadors
GHRTV Reporter
Juliette Wangen
Middle East Researcher
Global Human Rights Defence
On Monday 25 October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backpedalled on his order to declare 10 Western ambassadors persona non grata in Turkey. This development comes after diplomats from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the US released a statement last week calling for a “just and speedy resolution” to Osman Kavala’s case, a philanthropist who has been detained for four years without charge over alleged involvement in anti-government protests in 2013 and in an attempted coup in 2016. In December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights had called for Kavala’s release, maintaining that his detention was intended to silence him and that there was no reasonable suspicion he had committed an offence.
During the week-end, President Erdogan denounced the diplomats’ interference in Turkey’s internal affairs and called for their expulsion from the country. In an effort to avert a full-blown diplomatic crisis, the US embassy in Turkey, followed by its counterparts, published a statement on Twitter reading: “The United States notes that it maintains compliance with Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” This provision of the Vienna Convention enshrines diplomats’ duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of their receiving State. The Turkish President was thereafter reported to be welcoming the statement, claiming “Our intention is absolutely not to create a crisis but to protect our law, honour, interests and our sovereign rights.”
Sources and further reading:
‘Erdogan backs down on threat to expel Western envoys’ Al Jazeera (25 October 2021).
Ragip Soylu, ‘Turkish diplomacy with US stopped expulsion of 10 western envoys, sources say’ Middle East Eye (Ankara, 25 October 2021).
Tuvan Gumrukcu and Jonathan Spicer, ‘Turkey and West climb down from brink of biggest diplomatic crisis’ Reuters (Ankara, 25 October 2021).
