Emmanuel Macron condemns Turkish intervention in Syria, Libya, and Mediterranean

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – In an interview with al-Jazeera broadcast on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Turkey’s behavior in Syria, Libya, and the Mediterranean, describing it as a shock and aggression towards NATO allies.

Ankara did not respect the arms embargo in Libya while showing a profoundly aggressive attitude in the eastern Mediterranean, according to Macron.

“Turkey has imperial inclinations in the region and I think that these are not a good thing for the stability of the region; that’s it,” he stated.

Macron said that France wished that things would calm down, adding that tensions could ease if Erdogan showed respect to France, the European Union, and its values, and did not tell lies.

Macron has accused Turkey of adopting a belligerent attitude towards its NATO allies after weeks of tensions between France and Turkey, which reached a peak when Erdogan questioned the mental health of Macron over his attitude towards Islamic extremism.  

In the memorial service for murdered teacher Samuel Paty, Macron said that France would never renounce its laws permitting blasphemous caricatures sparking protests across the Muslim world.

“I will always defend in my country: the freedom to speak, to write, to think, to draw,” he said in a long interview with the Qatar-based channel.

Even before the attack on Paty, Macron had promised a tough new campaign against radical Islam in France, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of people since 2015.

France responded by taking the highly unusual step of recalling its ambassador to Ankara for consultations.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday that France would send its ambassador back to Ankara after a week’s absence.

Le Drian told German broadcaster RTL that Turkey made the deliberate choice to exploit the beheading of the French teacher, who showed caricatures of Prophet Muhammad to his students, accusing Ankara of launching “a hateful and slanderous campaign against us.”

Turkey’s condemnation of a knife attack at a church in Nice this week was “different, clear, and unambiguous, but that does not preclude clarifications by Ankara,” the minister said.

“We asked our ambassador to return to Ankara tomorrow for clarification and explanation, which the European Union itself has asked for from the Turkish authorities,” he added.