Turkey declared ambassadors of ten countries persona non grata

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructed the Foreign Ministry to declare the ambassadors of the United States, Canada, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden personae non grata.

“I have instructed our foreign minister to take immediate steps to have these 10 ambassadors declared persona non grata,” Erdogan said, speaking in the city of Eskisehir.

The reason for the decision was a call this week for the release of human rights activist Osman Kavala made by diplomats. They were then summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, where they were reminded of the need to comply with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Osman Kavala is a human rights activist and founder of the cultural foundation Anadolu Kültür AŞ, which, among other things, supports ethnic and religious minority projects that often have an international focus – such as reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian populations and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.

In February 2020, a Turkish court acquitted him of charges of involvement in an attempt to overthrow the government in the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. However, the Istanbul prosecutor’s office issued a new warrant for his arrest the same day, this time suspected of participating in an attempted coup d’etat in Turkey in July 2016.