Disappointment in Turkey over cancelled trip

Turkish MPs are disappointed the Dutch parliament has cancelled a fact-finding mission about the country’s wishes to join the European Union, the NRC reports on Thursday.


The parliamentary EU affairs commission decided yesterday to cancel the trip, apparently based on comments by one spokesman for the Turkish foreign affairs ministry, who said anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders is a racist and not welcome.
‘If a Dutch colleague has preconceptions about our country, the best thing to do is welcome him and change his mind,’ Yasar Yakis, chairman of the Turkish parliament’s EU harmonisation committee told the NRC.
Other interest groups
Dutch MPs, with the exception of the Socialist Party, voted yesterday to cancel the January trip, even though politicians, academics and other interest groups had agreed to meet delegates. ‘We are doing a disservice to them,’ SP Harry Bommel told the NRC.
Neither the Turkish prime minister or foreign minister have spoken publicly about Wilders’ visit and no formal decision has been taken about meeting the delegation, the NRC said.
A spokesman for the foreign affairs ministry told the paper it was a unilateral decision by the Netherlands not to go ahead with the visit. ‘We have not banned any MP from coming to Turkey but we are not going to roll out the red carpet for Wilders, considering media attention for him will overshadow the rest of the delegation.
Opposed
Wilders said earlier he planned to use the visit to Turkey to explain why he is totally opposed to Turkish membership of the EU.
In an article in the Volkskrant in October Wilders said no Muslim country should be a member of the EU. Any ‘more importation of that backward Islamic culture is undesirable,’ he wrote. ‘Western civilisation is so much better than a society based on Islamic imperialism and barbarism.’
Wilders said on Thursday it is ‘a real shame’ he would not be able to debate with the Turkish government. ‘It shows they cannot deal wi th criticism and critics. It’s a totalitarian, cowardly regime and will not be a member of the EU in a hundred million years,’ the Volkskrant quoted him as saying.

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