Erdogan warns Netherlands

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday warned the Netherlands it would pay a price for preventing top ministers from holding rallies ahead of a referendum on expanding his powers, as a crisis escalated with Turkey’s key EU partners.

Erdogan renewed hugely controversial accusations that the Netherlands -- occupied by the Germans in World War II -- was behaving like the Nazis in its treatment of Turkish ministers.

Analysts are predicting a tight outcome to the April 16 referendum and key Turkish ministers have planned major rallies in key EU cities to win votes from millions of Turks resident abroad.

But Turkey’s Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya was expelled after being prevented from addressing a rally in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

Also this weekend, The Hague refused to allow Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s plane to land ahead of a planned rally.

"Hey Holland! If you are sacrificing Turkish-Dutch relations for the sake of the elections on Wednesday, you will pay a price," an angry Erdogan told a ceremony in Istanbul, referring to the March 15 election in Turkey’s Nato ally.

"They will learn what diplomacy is," he growled, adding that what happened "cannot remain unanswered".

Faced with an upsurge in support for the ultra-right, European governments have come under pressure to take a hard line on Erdogan who is accused by critics of authoritarianism.

Erdogan reaffirmed his accusations from Saturday that the Dutch behaviour over the Turkish visits was "Nazism, fascism".

Police clashed with pro-Erdogan demonstrators in the Netherlands overnight while in Istanbul on Sunday a man climbed onto the roof of the Dutch consulate and replaced the Dutch flag with a Turkish flag.

The flag was later taken down and Turkish officials insisted the consulate had not been entered from the outside and "consular officials" had hoisted the flag on their own initiative.  The consulate declined to comment.