According to him, the U.S. wants to get clarity from the Turkish Foreign Ministry in this regard.
"We have reviewed these reports and are seeking clarity from the Turkish Foreign Ministry," a senior diplomat told RIA Novosti.
On October 23, President Erdogan instructed the Turkish Foreign Ministry to declare the ambassadors of 10 countries that called for the release of human rights activist Osman Kavala persona non grata. Earlier, the embassies of the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand had called for the human rights activist's release. After that, the Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed the call of the ambassadors of the listed countries. The states urged to respect the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
On the same day, German Vice-President Claudia Roth said that the Turkish president was taking increasingly strenuous action against critics of his policies and called for sanctions.
Osman Kavala is a well-known Turkish human rights activist and founder of the cultural foundation Anadolu Kültür AŞ, which supports religious and ethnic minority projects, often with an international focus, including reconciliation between the Armenian and Turkish populations as well as a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question, among others.
In February 2020, a Turkish court acquitted the human rights activist on charges of involvement in the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, but on the same day, the Istanbul prosecutor's office issued a new warrant for his arrest. Kavala faces new charges, this time of involvement in an attempted coup d'état in Turkey in July 2016.
You must be logged in to post a comment.