Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis quickly jumped in to defend French President Emmanuel Macron against insults from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is upset France has backed Greece in a dispute over boundaries in the Aegean and East Mediterranean.
“Personal insults against President Macron and hate speech targeting France by the Turkish leadership is unacceptable, fuels religious hatred and undermines peaceful coexistence,” Mitsotakis tweeted, said Kathimerini, after France recalled its Ambassador to Turkey in protest.
Erdogan, furious that France is rallying around Greece and planning to sell Rafale fighter jets as a further defense against Turkey, said Macron needed mental health treatment and made other comments that the French government described as unacceptably rude.
At a party, Erdogan questioned his French counterpart’s mental condition while criticizing Macron’s attitude toward Islam and Muslims in an apparent response to statements Macron made about problems created by radical Muslims in France who practice what the French leader termed “Islamist separatism.”
Tensions between NATO allies France and Turkey have intensified in recent months over issues that include the fighting in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan that is controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists.
Read the full report at thenationalherald.com
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