Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul Criticizes Geert Wilders Before Visit to The Netherlands

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul                  Hon. Geert wilders of Dutch Freedom Party (PVV)

Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul is arriving this week in The Netherlands for a three day visit in commemoration of 400 years of relations between the two countries.

Today he sent a message to the Hon. Geert Wilders of the Freedom Party (the PVV) junior member of the ruling Dutch coalition.  The message: Wilders is an “extreme voice’.  Notwithstanding that remark, Gul was still prepared to shake Wilders’ hand if an encounter occurred during his ceremonial visit to Holland.  A Radio Netherlands news article, “Turkish President Calls Wilders an Islamophobe”  citing an interview with Gul in De Telegraaf newspaper noted his concerns about Wilders:

President Gül said, “Mr. Wilders represents an extreme voice, which feeds radicals.”

He continued, saying because of Wilders “a negative us-against-them climate is developing in the whole of Europe, which is laying the foundation for ethnic religious discrimination.”

Wilders has according to the Radio Netherlands report indicated months ago that Gul was not welcome in the Netherlands, despite the fact that the Dutch government had issued an invitation.

Perhaps that was because the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of which Gul is a leader would not accept a delegation of Dutch parliamentarians that included Wilders in 2010.  As the Radio Netherlands article noted:

At the time, a Turkish spokesperson said that Wilders was “such a fascist that besides in Turkey, he would not be welcome in other European capitals.”

Wilders if anything is not fearful of Islam, as Gül’s remarks in the de Telegraaf interview imply. Wilders is not against Muslims, but rather against the Islamic doctrine that denies basic civil and human rights to women, those who leave the faith by personal choice and denigrates unbelievers, such as Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. Moreover, Wilders is a proponent of a US style First Amendment for The Netherlands and the EU that upholds the right to criticize any religion under the doctrine of free speech.  Turkey and the other 56 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are a virtual Caliphate seeking to impose Blasphemy laws on the West under the guise of allegedly combating intolerance of religions to silence any criticism of Islamic doctrine and totalitarian Shariah.

Gul has been frequently cited as a prominent Turkish adherent to the doctrine of billionaire ex-patriate Sheikh Muhammed Fehtuleh Gulen, a resident in the US, who some hold as “the world’s most dangerous Islamist.” Gulen has created an international educational indoctrination system which propounds the return of Turkish hegemony in a rising Caliphate. A new Caliphate to replace the one that ended with the demise of the Ottoman Empire and creation of the modern secular Republic of Turkey under Kemal Ataturk in 1923. A secular republic that President Gul and PM Recep Erdogan of the ruling AKP party rejected. Instead the AKP leaders are most emphatic that Turkey should be ruled by Islamic doctrine.  After all Erdogan has been quoted saying: “there is no moderate or immoderate Islam, Islam is Islam”. 

As Wilders noted in response to today’s De Telegraaf interview with Gul:

. . . that President Gül’s comments do not bother him. “Turkish humor: Christian-teaser, Kurd-basher, Hamas-friend and Islamist Gül complaining about tolerance.”