France said it had advised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkish president, Emmanuel Macron, to have a mental health check-up.
In a highly unusual move, a French presidential official said the French ambassador to Turkey was being called in from Ankara for advice and would meet with Mron Krone to discuss the situation following Erdogan’s aggression.
France and its NATO allies are discussing a number of issues, including the growing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over maritime rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ankara has been particularly outraged by the campaign led by Maron Krone to defend France’s secular values against radical Islam, which was given a new impetus by the assassination of a teacher who showed his class a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed.
“What can one say about the head of state who treats millions of members of different faith groups like this: First of all, do a psychiatric examination,” Erdogan said in a televised address in the central Anatolian city of Caesarea.
“What is the problem of a man called Macron with Islam and Muslims?” Asked Erdogan.
“Macron needs psychiatric treatment,” Erdogan added, while indicating that he did not expect the French leader to receive a new mandate in the 2022 election.
Mron Crown’s office reacted sharply, calling the comments unacceptable.
“President Erdogan’s comments are unacceptable. Excess and harshness is not a method. “We urge Erdogan to change his policy because he is dangerous in everything,” the official told AFP.
The Elysee official, who asked not to be named, also said that France had noted the “absence of messages of condolence and support” from the Turkish president after the beheading of teacher Samuel Petty outside Paris.
The official also expressed concern over calls by Ankara for a boycott of French goods.
This month Macron described Islam as a worldwide “state of emergency” and said the government would introduce a bill to strengthen the 1905 law that officially separated the church and the state in France.
He announced strict supervision of schools and better control over foreign funding of mosques.
But the debate over the role of Islam in France has hit new heights after Patti’s beheading, which prosecutors say was carried out by an 18-year-old Chechen with links to jihadists in Syria.
Turkey is a Muslim-majority but secular country that is part of NATO but not the EU, where its membership ambitions have been stalled for decades by controversy.
“You are constantly choosing Erdogan. This will not earn you, “said the Turkish leader.
“Elections will be held there (in France) … we will see your (Macron’s) fate. I don’t think he has a long way to go. Why He has achieved nothing for France and he should do it for himself. ”
Another new conflict between the two leaders is over Nagorno-Karabakh, the majority ethnic Armenian army territory in Azerbaijan, which has been annexed by the USSR. Declared independence after the fall of, which started a war in the early 1990s in which 30,000 people were killed.
Turkey has been a strong supporter of Azerbaijan in the conflict but has denied MacCrone’s allegations that Ankara has sent hundreds of Syrian military fighters to help Azerbaijan.
On Saturday, Erdogan accused France of colluding with Russia and the US. Together they assigned the task of resolving the conflict of the Minsk Group – “behind disasters and business in Azerbaijan”.
He also reiterated earlier claims that France, which has a strong Armenian community, was arming Yerevan. “You think the weapons you send to the Armenians will help you restore peace. You can’t do that because you’re not honest. ”
But the Elysee official said Erdogan had two months to respond to calls for a change of attitude and that he would end his “dangerous adventures” in the East Mediterranean and his “irresponsible behavior” over Karabakh.
Action needs to be taken by the end of the year, the official said.
