[GP] In one of the first reactions from Ankara to the Dutch election result, Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned that Europe was heading towards the abyss and that ’holy wars’ would soon begin on the continent ‐ this coming despite the fact that nationalist Geert Wilders, a vocal critic of Islam, was pushed into second place by the center right Prime Minister, Mark Rutte.| Holy wars™ have been fought by the Turks since well before Constantinople fell... |
The dramatic war of words, which saw Ankara accuse the Dutch government of ’fascism’ and of being a ’Nazi remnant’, has grown in recent days to include other Western European nations which have restricted Turkish political rallies on their soil, most notably Austria and Germany, but also Denmark and Switzerland.
Recent months have seen mass demonstrations and rallies, with seas of red ’star and crescent’ flags greeting Turkish ministers campaigning in Europe on behalf of their government’s referendum proposal. The sheer size of some rallies has caused unease, highlighting the scale of Europe’s burgeoning foreign populations and offering a glimpse of the continent’s demographic future.
Of the millions of Turks living in Europe, some five million ‐ many of them dual citizens ‐ are eligible to vote in the referendum, set for April 16th, which seeks to significantly increase the powers of authoritarian Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.