NATO apologizes to Turkey over reports Erdogan shown as foe
ANKARA, Turkey — NATO’s secretary-general apologized to Turkey on Friday over military exercises in Norway during which Turkey’s founding leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were reportedly depicted as “enemies.”
Erdogan said Turkey withdrew 40 of its soldiers participating in the drills at NATO’s Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, in protest of the incident and criticized the alliance.
“There can be no such unity, no such alliance,” he said in an address to his ruling party’s provincial leaders.
Details of the incident were sketchy. Erdogan said Ataturk’s picture and his own name were featured on an “enemy chart” during the drills.