Various Turkish media sources report that Turkey launched an investigation into a Dutch diplomat believed to work in Turkey as a spy.
News station A-Haber and newspapers Aksam and Sabah all published reports on this story on Monday, NOS reports. According to the Turkish media, Dutch man A.Z. is in Turkey on a diplomatic passport.
Former Turkish minister Fatma Sahin canceled a planned visit to Deventer after consultation with Dutch diplomats. After a diplomatic row sparked by another Turkish Minister's visit to Rotterdam last year, it was decided that this visit "would not be appropriate at this moment", a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said to AD.
Sahin, a prominent member of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK party, was scheduled to speak at a women's-only gathering at the Centrum Mosque in Deventer on Saturday.
Turkish media sources are targeting five Dutch parliamentarians with a Turkish background, calling them traitors after the Tweede Kamer officially recognized the Armenian Genocide. They've also received threats via social media, two of them confirmed to RTL Nieuws. Tweede Kamer president Khadija Arib called this "unacceptable".
A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, approved two motions regarding the Armenian genocide of 1915 on Thursday. One states that the Tweede Kamer "recognizes the Armenian genocide", the other that a Dutch Minister or State Secretary should attend the commemoration of this genocide in Armenia in April. This decision is expected to further sour the relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands, ANP reports.
Both motions were submitted by ChristenUnie parliamentarian Joel Voordewind. All four coalition parties supported the motions.
Talks on improving the relationship between the Netherlands and Turkey have failed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday. The Netherlands officially withdrew its ambassador in Ankara.
Six people accused of rioting at the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam will be prosecuted for violent crimes, the Dutch public prosecutor’s office announced on Friday. Violence around the March 11 expulsion of a prominent Turkish politician came to a boiling point a few hours after it became clear she would not be allowed to speak at a rally in front of the consulate.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to restore the relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands and Germany, he said in conversation with Turkish journalists on Thursday. "We have no problems with Germany, the Netherlands or Belgium. On the contrary, those who are in government are old friends", he said, according to broadcaster NOS.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte used the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg this weekend to speak with Russian president Vladimir Putin about the MH17 disaster and the decision to prosecute the perpetrators in the Netherlands under Dutch law, NOS reports.
The Dutch government decided that Turkish deputy prime minister Tugrul Türkes is not welcome in the Netherlands next week. He was planning to speak in the Orpheus congress center in Apeldoorn on Tuesday during a commemoration of the failed coup in Turkey last year, NOS reports.
The Dutch diplomatic network is in a "worrying state" and "urgently" needs to be strenghtened to avoid a diplomatic crisis, the advice council for international issues AIV said in a report on Wednesday. The new government will have to invest an extra 70 to 80 million euros annually into the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the report states according to ANP.
Turkish Minister Fatma Betul Kaya is dropping a lawsuit filed against the Netherlands, the Telgraaf reports based on information from a "highly placed" Turkish source. In the lawsuit she accused the Netherlands of illegally naming her an unwelcome foreigner and deporting her from the Netherlands in March.
Police officers in Rotterdam were threatened by supporters of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb wrote to the city council. According to him, there were "several signs of threat and intimidation" and these were mostly directed at officers with a Turkish background, RTL Nieuws reports.
Turkish Minister of Family Affairs Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya is suing the Netherlands for expelling her from the country on March 12th, her lawyer Ejder Kose said to AD and confirmed to NOS. According to Kaya, the Dutch government failed to explain on what grounds she had to leave the country, which means that her expulsion was unlawful.
At least ten, but maybe as many as 100, Turkish-Dutch are currently stuck in Turkey. They are not allowed to leave the country because they are critical about the Erdogan government, NOS reports based on its own sources. The Turkish government is furious about these reports. There are Dutch-Turks who are not allowed to leave the country, but that is because they have ties to the "terrorist" Gulen movement, the Turkish embassy said to the broadcaster.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to visit the Netherlands for a stadium-sized campaign event for a referendum that would give him more power, the Telegraaf reports. Turkish organizations tried to rent the Amsterdam ArenA, the Ziggo Dome or the Gelder Dome for the event, but all refused.
According to the newspaper, Erdogan was only willing to visit the Netherlands if he could arrange a meeting attended by tens of thousands of his supporters. He wanted it to be a "historic" meeting.
The police department of the small American town of Rotterdam were surprised las week when one of their phone numbers suddenly received dozens of calls from furious Turks shouting, swearing or singing nationalist songs at them. It seems the town, with 29 thousand inhabitants and about 5,700 kilometers away from the Dutch Rotterdam, unwittingly became involved in the diplomatic fallout between the Netherlands and Turkey, the Telegraaf reports.
A Dutch-Turkish protest planned in Rotterdam on Friday afternoon is canceled, the organizers announced on Facebook. They can't guarantee the safety of the participants and therefore feel it's better not to go through with it, AD reports.
The protest, "Solidarity for Turks", was to advocate for freedom of expression for Dutch-Turks in the Netherlands and against police violence during previous protests at the Turkish consulate this past weekend. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb gave permission for the protesters to march from Central Station to Schouwburgplein between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Dutch-Turkish CDA councilor in Rotterdam Turan Yazir is taking a leave of absence from his faction due to threats.
The Netherlands will not apologize to Turkey for the actions taken in Rotterdam on Saturday around the arrival of Turkish Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Mark Rutte said to Het Parool on Wednesday. "The actions taken on Saturday were firm and respectful."
In a new verbal attack, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds the Netherlands responsible for the mass murder of thousands of Muslim men in Srebrenica in 1995. "We know the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre", he said in a speech that was televised live in Turkey, according to the Volkskrant. "We know how rotten their character is due to their murder of 8 thousand Bosnians there."
Turkish hacker groups targeted a large number of Dutch websites after the political fallout between the Netherlands and Turkey over the weekend. The NL Times website was also targeted.
NL Times was the victim of at least two DDoS attacks on Sunday and Monday, in an attempt to take the site offline, according to a Turkish-language Facebook group linked to cyber-attackers. In a DDoS attack, a large amount of traffic is sent to specific servers, causing them to crash.
