Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has summoned a total of nine ambassadors to Ankara on Thursday, including those of the countries that have announced this week the temporary closure of their consulates in Istanbul for security reasons, Anatolia news agency reports.
For the time being, the consulates of Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France have temporarily closed their doors in the Turkish city due to the risk of attacks against their headquarters in the context of tensions caused by the burning of copies of the Koran in some European countries.
Faced with this wave of consular closures, the Turkish Minister of the Interior, Suleyman Soylu, has criticized the measures and warned that it is a «psychological war» launched against Turkey after the United States warned of the threat of possible terrorist attacks.
In mid-January, a Swedish-Danish ultranationalist burned a copy of the Koran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm as part of a series of demonstrations against Sweden’s accession to NATO, for the moment vetoed by Turkey and Hungary.
Attacks on Islam’s holy book have also taken place in Denmark and the Netherlands, and other attempts have been stopped at least in Finland. Turkey, for its part, has expressed its disapproval and has opened an investigation into events which, it says, violate religious feelings.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
