Turkey demands an apology from France – politics

Turkey has accused France of disseminating false information about an incident involving a French warship in the Mediterranean and has made an official apology. France does not tell the EU and NATO the truth, and this is also shown by a report by the NATO military experts, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu after talks with Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin. “France has to apologize to us,” said Çavuşoğlu.

In the incident, according to information from Paris, a Turkish warship had multiple fire control radar on a French frigate, the Courbet, directed. Since such systems are usually only used to provide target data for the use of weapon systems, France considered this to be “extremely aggressive” and was raised at the recent NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg then announced that the incident of June 10 would be investigated by the NATO military authorities – also because the French frigate was under way as part of the “Sea Guardian” maritime surveillance operation at the time of the incident.

A first investigation report is now apparently available – however, according to media reports, it is classified as secret. Because France considers the report unsatisfactory, the newspaper has it L’Opinion announced to suspend its stake in “Sea Guardian”.

Dispute over possible arms deliveries

The background to the incident is that the French frigate wanted to control a cargo ship suspected of being used for Turkish arms deliveries to Libya. France has long accused Turkey of violating the current EU arms embargo by delivering arms to the Libyan government’s troops.

Turkey, in turn, claims that countries like the United Arab Emirates are also violating the arms embargo by supplying arms to government opponent General Chalifa Haftar. France is also sending weapons to the illegitimate prisoner, said Çavuşoğlu. Çavuşoğlu said that NATO knew the truth. His country had that Courbet not bothered. Turkey has given NATO reports and documents as evidence. France should stop participating in anti-Turkish actions.

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