“I asked our foreign minister to take immediate steps to ensure that these 10 ambassadors are declared persona non grata,” Erdogan said.
Previously, the embassies of Canada, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United States had called Turkey to release human rights defender Osman Kaval.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry reminded ambassadors of the need to comply with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Osman Kavala is one of Turkey’s most famous human rights defenders and the founder of the Anadolu Kültür AŞ cultural foundation, which supports the projects of national minorities and campaigns for reconciliation between Turks and Kurds and Armenians. In February 2020, a Turkish court acquitted him of his involvement in anti-government protests. However, the Turkish prosecution immediately issued a new arrest warrant. New charges were brought against Kavala, this time for involvement in an attempted military coup in 2016.
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