ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II.

In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a Dutch battalion of United Nations peacekeepers who failed to halt the slaughter by Bosnian Serb forces.

Erdogan said: “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned Erdogan’s comments, calling them a “disgusting distortion of history.” “We will not lower ourselves to this level. It is totally unacceptable,” Rutte told Dutch broadcaster RTL Z.

It was the latest in Erdogan’s war of words on the Netherlands, which prevented two Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies in the country over the weekend. The two ministers had sought to campaign in an April 16 referendum on expanding Erdogan’s powers, courting the votes of eligible Turks in the Netherlands. Around 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

The Turkish leader previously called the Netherlands “Nazi remnants” and also accused it of “fascism.”

Earlier, Turkey criticised the European Union for siding with the Netherlands in the row. In a statement on 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.

The ministry argued that the European bloc had “ignored the (Netherlands’) violation of diplomatic conventions and the law” after Dutch authorities escorted the Turkish family affairs minister out of the country and denied the foreign minister permission to land.

The diplomatic spat between the two countries escalated swiftly with Erdogan making several Nazi comparisons with EU member states Germany and the Netherlands. The EU has called on Turkey to cease “excessive statements.” The spat has raised concerns that co-operation between the EU and Turkey on a number of issues, such as dealing with the flow of migrants from war-torn Syria, may start to fray.

On Monday, Turkey slapped a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands, including halting political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish airspace to Dutch diplomats. Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps “to redress” the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.

Erdogan said there could be more sanctions but did not elaborate. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci as saying economic sanctions “could come to the agenda in the period ahead.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel also backed the Netherlands in its diplomatic fight with Turkey, pledging her full support and solidarity with the Dutch and saying the Nazi jibes were unacceptable.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2017