NATO Secretary General apologizes to Turkey over ‘enemy chart’

NATO’s chief on Friday apologized to Turkey after a civilian Norwegian official depicted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an “enemy collaborator” during a bloc exercise in Norway.

Turkey has withdrawn from the Trident Javelin exercise, Erdoğan also announced Friday, citing a separate incident in the drill showing Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a “hostile,” and saying, “There can be no alliance like that.”

In a written statement, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: "I apologize for the offence that has been caused. The incidents were the result of an individual’s actions and do not reflect the views of NATO."

Stoltenberg’s statement said that the individual in question "was immediately removed from the exercise by the Joint Warfare Centre, and an investigation is underway.”

"He was a civilian contractor seconded by Norway and not a NATO employee. It will be for the Norwegian authorities to decide on any disciplinary action," he also said.

Stoltenberg added that Turkey is a "valued NATO Ally, which makes important contributions to Allied security."

During the computer-assisted exercise, a Norwegian official created a dummy military chat account under the president’s name, and posted a fake chat showing “Erdoğan” as collaborating with an enemy, a NATO official, who asked not to be named due to the nature of the incident, told Anadolu Agency.

In an earlier separate incident, a technical staffer for the same exercise used a picture of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, in the “Hostile Leaders Biographies” section of the computerized exercise.

Concerning the incident, the staffer claimed that he had not known that the picture showed Atatürk, and apologized.

Polish Maj. Gen. Andrzej Reudowicz, the commander of the Joint Warfare Center (JWC) in Stavanger, Norway where the exercise took place, has also issued a letter of apology over the incidents, according to the anonymous NATO official.

Speaking to fellow members of Turkey’s ruling party Friday, Erdoğan said, "They used an enemy chart in Norway. In that chart, there was my name and Atatürk's picture."

The president said he had been informed about the incidents by Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and EU Affairs Minister Ömer Çelik.

"They told me that they are withdrawing our 40 soldiers from” the exercise, Erdoğan said.

"I told them to do that immediately."