January 29 (United Press International) — Turkey’s foreign ministry issued a travel warning late Saturday to citizens planning to travel to the United States and Europe following the protests against Türkiye.
Recent protests in Sweden and other European countries over the burning of Korans by anti-Islam demonstrators have led U.S. and European officials to issue similar travel warnings to Turkey, according to Turkish officials. Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
In one such protest, far-right extremist Rasmus Paludan, a Danish-Swedish politician who leads the Danish political party Stram Kurs, videotape yourself Burning of the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy.
“Recently, an increase in anti-Islamic, xenophobic and racist behavior has been observed in several European countries, as well as propaganda demonstrations against our country by groups associated with terrorist organizations,” the travel warning reads.
“These developments reflect the dangerous dimension of religious intolerance and hatred in Europe, and clearly reveal the alarming extent to which the movement of racism and discrimination has reached in Europe.”
U.S. embassy in Turkey Friday issued a warning like A warning was issued to Americans in the country, citing the risk of “terrorism”.
“Following the recent Koran burnings in Europe, the U.S. government is warning its citizens of possible terrorist retaliatory attacks on places of worship in Turkey,” a statement from the U.S. embassy read.
“Terrorists can attack with little or no warning, targeting places of worship or places frequented by Westerners.”
Canada issued a warning like Because “terrorists may carry out retaliatory attacks on the burning of the Koran”.
Sweden, a long-standing neutral country, has been seeking to join the NATO military alliance with neighboring Finland following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland and Sweden signed a NATO partnership agreement in 1994, but it did not provide any security guarantees.
The countries have decided to end their official neutrality and join NATO fully, despite threats from Moscow that doing so would lead to an aggressive response from Russia.
However, the process of joining NATO requires ratification of the agreement by all 30 members of the alliance – including Türkiye, which has express objection Join in Sweden.
president of turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey has since said it would not support Sweden’s bid to join NATO.