(AFP) Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday weighed in [on] a growing spat between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a Dutch anti-Islam MP, whom the Turkish leader has accused of defamation over a cartoon drawing.
Erdogan filed a complaint this week against outspoken far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who shared a cartoon of the Turkish president wearing an Ottoman hat shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse on Twitter.
Turkish state agency Anadolu said Erdogan brought a defamation complaint before state prosecutors in Ankara against Wilders, who also tweeted the word “Terrorist” with the cartoon.
“I have a message for President Erdogan and that message is simple: In the Netherlands freedom of expression is one of our highest values,” Rutte said.
