By Meltem Bulur and Mehmet Kara

ANKARA

Turkey’s foreign minister on Tuesday rebuffed the French president’s defense of a magazine which insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Democracy is not only about one side enforcing its insults, swearwords, and lies, but is also about taking into consideration other side's opinions and sensitivities," Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a tweet.

France’s Emmanuel Macron on Monday criticized the removal of a poster advertising this week's cover of Le Point magazine, which shows Erdogan with the label “dictator.”

After Turks living in France protested the image, some posters at news agents in the city of Avignon were taken down.

Omer Celik, Turkey's EU minister, also slammed Macron on Twitter, saying: “French magazine Le Point circulated a hate crime and attacked our president with black propaganda. Our citizens in various circles in France reacted against this.

"How long have hate crimes been freedom of the press? Is it proper for Macron when the same style, hate speech, and black propaganda are used against him?”

Letter from Turkish ambassador

Separately, Turkey's ambassador to Paris wrote a letter to Etienne Gernelle, director of the magazine, labelling its publication about Erdogan an attack on Turkey and its rulers. 

"You can not deny that this publication is a rare violent attack on my country and its rulers," Ismail Hakki Musa said in the letter.

Musa said the article on Erdogan failed to include any positive elements about Turkey or its president despite the presence of positive developments.

Musa blasted the "disgusting, even hateful rhetoric" of the weekly magazine.

He also said that under Turkey's right of defense, he expected the letter would be published in an upcoming issue of the magazine.