QA-39, 7 November 2016

We regret and condemn the issues raised in an interview delivered to the German radio channel "Deutschlandfunk" today (7 November) by Mr. Jean Asselborn, Ministerof Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, which is one of the leading countries in Europe that provide support toterrorism.

These unfortunate statements of Mr. Asselborn, Foreign Minister of a country whose contribution to the efforts to combat terrorism at the global level is controversial, demonstrate how incapable he is in understanding the scale and character of the terrorist threat facing Turkey and his failure to assess it in a right way.

We would expect from Minister Asselborn to condemn on every occasion the terrorists who attempted the bloody coup which resulted in the death of our 246 citizens.

Instead, Minister Asselborn’s comparison of the efforts in Turkey to prevent a similar initiative and to consolidate democracy to a black period of Europe points to his lack of knowledge of history and his inability to make an objective assessment.

In Turkey, a democratic country, the steps that have been taken since July 15, aim to ensure that Turkish people live in democracy and freedom. The words of Foreign Minister Asselborn uttered against the statements of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey H.E. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, delivered at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Strasbourg, are totally unsubstantiated.