Jean Asselborn has said that sanctions against Turkey may be in the cards if Ankara’s purge of civil servants continues. He compared the government’s strategy to Nazi Germany.
Luxembourg’s top diplomat compared the Turkish authorities to Nazis on Monday as Ankara’s post-coup attempt crackdown showed no sign of abating. Over 110,000 civil servants, academics, and journalists have lost their jobs since the July violence that tried to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The dismissed employees are then listed in an official registry which functions as a kind of blacklist making it hard for them to find new employment. Some have also had their passports revoked. Luxembourgish Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn further accused Turkey of revoking some people’s university degrees and leaving them destitute.
“To put it bluntly, these are methods that were used during the Nazi era and that’s a really, really bad development … that the European Union simply cannot accept,” Asselborn said.
The foreign minister suggested implementing economic sanctions against the Turkish government in light of how much Turkey relies on investment from EU countries.
“At a certain point in time, we won’t have any choice but to apply (sanctions) to counteract the unbearable human rights situation,” he said.
