Al Haqeeqa
Ankara: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold on May 20 a rally in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo to address expatriate Turks ahead of June 24 elections, the presidency said Wednesday.
The rally is expected to be the only time Erdogan will hold an election-related event outside of Turkey in this campaign, after the issue caused major tensions with Ankara’s EU partners last year.
Erdogan’s rally “will take place in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina on May 20,” presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in a televised press conference in Ankara.
He said Erdogan would deliver “his messages to our European citizens.”
The Turkish leader has called snap presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, bringing the polls forward by a year and a half.
The announcement of the Sarajevo rally comes after Austria and the Netherlands said they would ban any campaigning by Turkish politicians on their soil for the June elections.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in April that Turkish campaign events would “not be welcome” while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stated that any campaigning in the Netherlands would be “undesirable.”
In protest, Erdogan said on April 21 that countries attempting to undermine his country’s democratic struggle would “pay a price.”
EU member states including Germany, the Netherlands and Austria banned such rallies in the campaign for last year’s referendum on a new system enhancing the powers of the presidency.
Erdogan denounced such moves as reminiscent of the Nazis, in a major outburst of tensions with Brussels.
The early election is set to accelerate Turkey’s transition to the new presidential system with full executive powers which critics fear will lead to a one-man rule.
There are some three million Turks living in Europe eligible to vote in Turkish elections, around half of them in Germany.
The expatriate European vote is generally a source of support for Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and officials are keen to rouse a strong turnout in Europe.
Turkey has excellent relations with Bosnia, with the Bosnian Muslim member of the tripartite presidency Bakir Izetbegovic a personal friend of Erdogan and Turkish companies playing a major role in postwar reconstruction.
Agence France-Presse
