Turkey threatens to end European Union migrant deal over ban on ministers campaigning

President Tayyip Erdogan has previously accused the Dutch government of acting like “Nazi remnants” for barring his ministers from addressing expatriate Turks to drum up votes.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Turkish ministers could not come to campaign in his country. “They are the ones who massacred more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica”. We are not going to reduce ourselves to this level.

“You may have emerged as the number one party in the election but you must know that you have lost Turkey as your friend”, he said.

‘Turkey continues to shout ever louder, directed now at Germany as well as the Netherlands.

Erdogan vowed to retaliate against the Netherlands after claiming that “Nazism is alive in the West”.

And there appears to be no end in sight with the German city of Hanover on Thursday barring a rally by the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD) at which a senior official from Erdogan’s ruling AKP party was to speak.

In a statement Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the EU’s stance on Turkey was “short-sighted” and “carried no value” for Turkey, as well as lending “credence” to extremists.

Rotterdam was host to much of the drama that unfolded over the weekend, as Dutch police clashed with Turkish protesters outside the Turkish Consulate building on the evening of March 11.

“What happened to your freedom to faith and religion”, Erdogan said.

The feud comes at a critical moment for the future of both Turkey and the Netherlands, and has threatened to draw in the rest of Europe. Michael Rubin writes that a recent diplomatic crisis involving Turkey and the Netherlands has little to do with the Dutch and everything to do with distraction and Erdogan’s perpetual quest for enemies.

Merkel has refrained from reacting to Erdogan.

Merkel’s spokesman described the accusations as “absurd”, saying the chancellor had no intention of taking part in a “competition of provocations”. “She won’t play along”.

Turkey hosts more than three million refugees, making it the country with the largest refugee population, according to the European Commission.

But foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu – who had been flying to Rotterdam on behalf of Mr Erdogan ahead of the April 16 vote – was not permitted to land because Dutch authorities had deemed the rally unsafe.

On Sunday night, Dutch riot police were called in to end a protest by Turks in Amsterdam and arrested 13 people, said spokeswoman Marjolein Koek.

“The Dutch economy is in excellent shape and very resilient, while the Turkish economy has been in crisis mode since the middle of previous year”.

“With the current Turkish attacks on the Netherlands the meeting can not be seen separated from that”, he was quoted as saying in an official press release.

Earlier, the Dutch also had refused Turkey’s foreign minister permission to visit.

Turkey is now trying to campaign among Turks in European countries for their votes in an upcoming referendum to reform its constitution.

The latest development comes just a day before voters in the Netherlands go to the polls for a general election dominated by concerns about immigration and Islamic radicalism.