10 Western envoys

Erdoğan backpedals, says 10 Western envoys can stay in Turkey

The Turkish president threatened to expel the diplomats over the weekend.

BY LOUIS WESTENDARP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will not expel 10 Western ambassadors from the country in a climbdown averting a major diplomatic crisis.

“Our goal is never to create crises — it is to protect the rights, laws, honor and sovereignty of our country,” Erdoğan said in a televised address.

He had instructed his foreign ministry to declare 10 western envoys persona non grata on Saturday, including the ambassadors of the U.S., France and Germany, after they publicly demanded the release of imprisoned civil society leader Osman Kavala.

“With a new statement made by the same embassies today, a step back was taken from this slander against our country and our nation. I believe these ambassadors … will be more careful in their statements regarding Turkey’s sovereign rights,” the Turkish president continued.

The embassies had Monday shared a statement on Twitter reiterating their compliance with Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations regarding the diplomatic duty not to interfere in host states’ internal affairs, which appears to have satisfied the Turkish leader.

Turkish entrepreneur and cultural leader Osman Kavala has been detained in Istanbul since 2017. Kavala is accused of supporting the anti-government Gezi protests in Istanbul in 2013 and inciting an attempted coup. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2019 that Kavala should be released, but he remains in jail.