President Erdoğan said on March 15 that he has ordered Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım to end Istanbul’s sister city pact with Rotterdam following a diplomatic row between the Turkey and the Netherlands.
“I told our prime minister last night. I told him that he should urgently inform our Istanbul mayor [Kadir Topbaş] and break our sister city agreement with Rotterdam unilaterally for it is impossible for us to be sister cities with such people,” Erdoğan said a rally in the inner Aegean province of Afyon.
Family Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya was prevented from Dutch police from reaching Turkey’s consulate in Rotterdam on March 11 after being told not to enter the Netherlands to conduct political campaigning for the April 16 charter referendum, Hurriyet Daily News reported.