Turkey to expel US envoy & nine others, says President Erdogan

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In what could open up the deepest spat ever between Turkey and the West in Turk President Tayyip Erdogan’s 19 years in power, Erdogan said in a statement on Saturday that he had ordered the country’s Foreign Ministry to expel ambassadors of the United States alongside nine others because of demanding a release of a known anti-Erdogan protestor Osman Kavala, who had reportedly staged a political coup back in the 2016s with financial supports from the West.

More importantly, had the latest decision from Turk President Tayyip Erdogan to banish Western ambassadors been carried out, it would most likely stem a profound impact on the region’s political and economic supremacy, since seven of the ten ambassadors having been ordered to be expelled are Turkey’s Nato allies.

As several politicians from the east including Moscow and Beijing had branded the Western approach a spiteful invasion into a nation’s internal affair, Erdogan said in a speech in the Turkish city of Eskisehir, “I gave the necessary order to our foreign minister and said what must be done: These 10 ambassadors must be declared persona non grata (undesirable) at once.

You will sort it out immediately. They will know and understand Turkey. The day they do not know and understand Turkey, they will leave”. Nevertheless, latest decision from Erdogan, which would more likely to have long-running consequences, came forth as relationships between Turkey and EU alongside the US had soured severely over recent past on a number of blazing issues including Turkey’s effort to increase military power by purchasing Russia-borne S-400 missiles, while a political rift had already been breathing fire over the region about Turkey’s intransigent move to enhance sea-borders close to Greece and Cyprus.

Kavala crisis

On top of that, latest aggressive course of action from Erdogan came forth less than a week after the envoys of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand alongside the United States had called for an ‘urgent release’ of a so-called philanthropist, Kavala, widely known to a financial contributor to several civil society group, while the sources of Kavala’s contributions had never been confirmed.

However, Kavala had been in prison more than four years over accusations of financing a countrywide protest back in the 2013s and staging a political coup to oust Erdogan in 2016. Nonetheless, Kavala had pleaded ‘non guilty’ to all of the charges against him.