Turkey urges NATO to deepen drill incident probe

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA

Turkey’s EU affairs minister on Tuesday called on the NATO to deepen its investigation into an incident during a recent drill where the names of the Turkish founder and current president were used in an "enemy chart".

Speaking to lawmakers in the general assembly, Omer Celik said: "Turkey waits for the opening of an investigation to punish those responsible.”

He added that Turkey did not want the case to be closed after NATO singled out an individual for the incident.

"How was this disrespect done to the founder of the Turkish Republic Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the president of Turkey? There is definitely a chain of command on which this person depended. We also want this chain to be investigated," he said.

Turkey withdrew its troops from NATO's Trident Javelin exercise in Norway last Friday, after a civilian Norwegian official depicted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an "enemy collaborator".

A portrait of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was also shown in the "hostile leader list" during a computer-assisted exercise of the drill.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's lawmaker Cahit Ozkan slammed the NATO drill incident.

He said: “The incident cannot be considered a mistake, it was downright disrespect.”