Experts: Cooling of Turkish-EU ties led to scandal between Ankara and Amsterdam - OPINION

Baku. 14 March. REPORT.AZ/ Diplomatic scandal between Turkey and the Netherlands was due to the cooling of relations directly between Turkey and the European Union, experts believe.

"Diplomatic scandal between Turkey and Holland, first of all, is connected with the general cooling of relations not only between these countries, but also between Turkey and the EU. The Netherlands itself, in my opinion, is incapable of sudden movements, and, accordingly, it coordinated its actions", Russian political analyst Yevgeniy Mikhailov told Report.

According to him, Germany played the main role in this scandal, where a large number of immigrants from Turkey live. The expert added that such an attitude of the EU is connected with the existence of migration crisis in Europe, which "scared" them after the pre-election statements of Turkish politicians on its territory.

"However, after all, the largest economy in Europe is Germany, which formed due to workers from Turkey.

Accordingly, the growing tensions between Turkey and EU may lead to a complete collapse of the relationship between them", political scientist said.

In turn, senior expert of the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP) at the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, candidate of political sciences Zohra Azizova noted that sharp deterioration in diplomatic relations between Turkey and Netherlands is caused by Europe's rejection of the campaign launched by Ankara in the run-up to the April referendum, which provides for the expansion of Presidential powers of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

"We can not ignore seriousness of pressure from public opinion - in conditions of rising ultra-right political forces and the growth of xenophobic sentiments both in Europe in general and in the Netherlands, in particular, Amsterdam's reaction seems quite understandable. Especially, since the day after tomorrow, on March 15, the parliamentary elections will take place in Netherlands, and right-populist rhetoric reached its apogee in the framework of the pre-election campaign", Z. Azizova said.

According to her, the incident with the Turkish minister will definitely bring political points to Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte in the eyes of the Dutch electorate.

Speaking about further scenarios of events, Z. Azizova suggested that rhetoric will be toughened, thereby diplomatic crisis will be aggravating in the coming days, but both sides will make efforts for a compromise solution to the current problems.

"In any case, this situation has already created favorable conditions for solidarity of the Turkish electorate - both inside the country and beyond - in favor of the ruling party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Thus, we can observe how domestic political agenda directly influenced bilateral relations of states, acquiring the format of a diplomatic scandal", expert concluded.