ISTANBUL: France on Saturday said it was recalling its envoy to Turkey for consultations after comments by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggesting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron needed a mental health check-up that Paris condemned as unacceptable.
France and its NATO ally are at loggerheads over a range of issues including maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria and the escalating conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
But Ankara has now been particularly incensed by a campaign championed by Macron to protect France’s secular values against radical Islam, a debate given new impetus by the murder this month of a teacher who showed his class a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed.
“What can one say about a head of state who treats millions of members from different faith groups this way: first of all, have mental checks,” Erdogan said in a televised address in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri.
“What’s the problem of the individual called Macron with Islam and with the Muslims?” Erdogan asked.
“Macron needs mental treatment,” Erdogan added, while indicating he did not expect the French leader to win a new mandate in 2022 elections.
In a highly unusual move, a French presidential official said that the French ambassador to Turkey was being recalled from Ankara for consultations and would meet Macron to discuss the situation in the wake of Erdogan’s outburst.
“President Erdogan’s comments are unacceptable. Excess and rudeness are not a method. We demand that Erdogan change the course of his policy because it is dangerous in every respect,” 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 Paty outside Paris.
The official also expressed concern over calls by Ankara for a boycott of French goods.
Macron this month described Islam as a religion “in crisis” worldwide and said the government would present a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state in France.
He announced stricter oversight of schooling and better control over foreign funding of mosques.
But the debate over the role of Islam in France has hit a new intensity after the beheading of Paty, which prosecutors say was carried out by an 18-year-old Chechen who had contact with a jihadist in Syria.
Turkey is a majority Muslim but secular country which is a part of NATO but not the EU, where its membership bid has stalled for decades over a range of disputes.
“You are constantly picking on Erdogan. This will not earn you anything,” said the Turkish leader.
“There will be elections (in France) ... We will see your (Macron’s) fate. I don’t think he has a long way to go. Why? He has not achieved anything for France and he should do for himself.”
The other new rift between the two leaders is over Nagorno-Karabakh — a majority ethnic Armenian breakaway region inside Azerbaijan, which declared independence as the USSR fell, sparking a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives.
Turkey is strongly backing Azerbaijan in the conflict but has denied allegations by Macron that Ankara has sent hundreds of Syrian militia fighters to help Azerbaijan.
Erdogan on Saturday accused France — which along with Russia and the United States co-chairs the Minsk Group tasked with resolving the conflict — of “being behind the disasters and the occupations in Azerbaijan.”
He also repeated previous claims that France, which has a strong Armenian community, is arming Yerevan. “You think you will restore peace with the arms you are sending to Armenians. You cannot because you are not honest.”
But the Elysee official said that Erdogan had two months to reply to the demands for a change in stance and that it ends its “dangerous adventures” in the eastern Mediterranean and “irresponsible conduct” over Karabakh.
“Measures need to be taken by the end of the year,” said the official.
France recalls Turkey envoy after Erdogan ‘mental health’ jibe at Macron
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France recalls Turkey envoy after Erdogan ‘mental health’ jibe at Macron
- France and its NATO ally are at loggerheads over a range of issues including maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean
- Ankara has now been particularly incensed by a campaign championed by Macron to protect France’s secular values against radical Islam
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
