Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he had cancelled his planned attendance at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow because of a dispute over the security protocol.
Erdogan had been due to travel to Scotland after holding a crunch meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome.
But he told reporters on board his flight back to Turkey that the Glasgow event organisers had failed to address his delegation’s security concerns.
“When our demands were not met, we gave up on going to Glasgow,” the Anadolu state news agency quoted Erdogan as saying. “This was not only about our own security, but also about the reputation of our country.”
A report by the Middle East Eye website cites Turkish sources as saying that organisers had put a limit on the size of Erdogan’s travelling delegation. COP26 organisers issued no immediate comment.—AFP
