Diplomatic Row: Turkey and US scale back visa services amid diplomatic row

The American mission in Ankara said it had suspended all non-immigrant visa services in order to "reassess" Turkey's commitment to staff security.

Turkey's embassy in Washington replied by suspending "all visa services".

The latest spat began when a US consulate worker in Istanbul was held over suspected links to a cleric blamed for last year's failed coup in Turkey.

Washington condemned the move as baseless and damaging to bilateral relations.

The arrested consulate employee was a male Turkish citizen, Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The row prompted a 4% fall in Turkey's main share index while the Turkish lira tumbled more than 2.5% against the dollar.

Read more: Turkey and US scale back visa services amid diplomatic row - BBC News

Turkey-The Netherlands -EU: Diplomatic row as Dutch withdraw landing rights for Turkish minister's plane

The Netherlands says NO

The Netherlands has withdrawn landing rights for a plane carrying a Turkish government minister who wanted to address a rally in support of a controversial referendum giving more power to the president.

Foreign affairs minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu was planning to speak at a meeting in support of the referendum in Rotterdam late on Saturday afternoon. The decision to stop the plane carrying Cavusoglu from landing was taken on public order grounds. The call by the Turkish authorities for a mass demonstration is a threat to public order and safety, the Dutch foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

‘The Netherlands was in talks with the Turkish authorities about an acceptable solution to the visit,’ the statement said. Talks were ongoing about whether the meeting could take place in a smaller, closed environment such as a Turkish consulate or the embassy. ‘But before those talks could be completed, the Turkish authorities made a public threat about sanctions.

That made the search for a reasonable solution impossible,’ the statement said. The ministry said that many Dutch Turkish have voting rights in Turkey and that the government has no objection to information meetings. ‘But these meetings cannot contribute to the tensions in our society,’ the statement said.

More powers Cavusoglu hopes to win support for a yes vote in the Turkish referendum on amending the constitution to concentrate more power with president Tayyip Erdogan. Prime minister Mark Rutte has said the visit, planned for just four days before the Dutch general election, is ‘undesirable’.

The timing is inopportune, given that much of the election campaign revolves around maintaining the Dutch identity. It would also be playing into the hands of Geert Wilders, who held a short demonstration for the press in front of the Turkish embassy on Wednesday, Dutch commentators said.

Note EU-Digest: Obviously this move by the Dutch PM will score a lot of points for him in the upcoming Dutch elections in 4 days ,


Read more: Diplomatic row as Dutch withdraw landing rights for Turkish minister's plane - DutchNews.nl

Egypt summons Turkish envoy over Erdogan slur

Egypt has warned Turkey of "further action" as it protested for the second time in a week at the Turkish premier criticising its president and Cairo's handling of the Gaza conflict.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it summoned the Turkish charge d' affaires, the highest-ranking Turkish official in the country, over comments by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling Sisi a "tyrant" and criticising Egypt's stance on Gaza.

The ministry said Erdogan was driven by "narrow ideological interests," referencing Turkey's support to the Muslim Brotherhood group, listed as a terrorist organisation in Egypt, and defended the legitimacy of Sisi's election.

"The continuation of the insults against Egypt and its elected leadership will undoubtedly lead to more measures from Egypt, leading to limited progress of bilateral relations," the statement said.

The statement also said that Egypt's charge d' affaires in Turkey had conveyed "a message of strong protest" to Turkish authorities.

Read more: Egypt summons Turkish envoy over Erdogan slur - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

PRISM: Austrian Bolivian President plane search for leaker Snowden enrages Bolivia - by Angelika Gruber

Bolivia accused Austria of "kidnapping" its president, Evo Morales, on Wednesday after authorities searched his plane during a stop-over in Vienna on suspicion he was taking fugitive U.S. intelligence analyst Edward Snowden to Latin America.

A senior Bolivian diplomat said the Austrians had acted at the bidding of the United States, which has been trying to get its hands on Snowden since he revealed details of its secret surveillance programs last month.

"We're talking about the president on an official trip after an official summit being kidnapped," Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Sacha Llorenti Soliz, told reporters in Geneva.

The Bolivian plane, which was bringing Morales home from an energy conference in Moscow, was stranded at Vienna airport for several hours after Portugal and France refused to allow it to fly through their airspace.

The search found that Snowden was not onboard and the plane eventually left Vienna about noon on Wednesday.

Read more: Austrian plane search for leaker Snowden enrages Bolivia | Reuters