Turkey: Asylum for serviceman is a ‘scandal’

Turkey has described the granting of asylum on Tuesday to the second of eight Turkish servicemen who fled to Greece after the 2016 coup attempt as a “scandal.”

“It is a development that will affect our relations negatively,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said on Wednesday.

For its part, Greece’s Migration Ministry filed an appeal yesterday against the decision by the asylum committee to grant asylum to the Turkish officer.

In December 2017, the ministry had followed the same procedure against the asylum granted to another Turkish serviceman, whose petition was discussed by the Council of State on May 4.

However, Kalin said “it is impossible not to react” to the decision.

“We have often talked to the Greek authorities and we know that they have made some efforts but that is not enough,” he said, adding that Turkey is “currently faced with the possibility that these terrorists, these coup plotters, can move freely in a country that is right next to us; an EU country.”

Meanwhile, according to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg expressed his concern over the disagreements between Greece and Turkey but stressed again that these must be resolved bilaterally.

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