ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Thursday slammed the Western countries for closing their consulates in Istanbul and issuing travel warnings, seeing the move as a step to target Turkey’s tourism sector. Turkey’s refusal to greenlight the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland unless they meet Ankara’s demands has caused diplomatic tensions. This was followed by protests in both Nordic countries last month in which copies of the Holy Quran were burned in front of Turkish embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Some countries have closed their consulates in Istanbul and others, like Germany and US, have instead warned their citizens against visiting tourist hotspots in the city, fearing that Islamic groups could launch retaliatory attacks against them. Soylu was cited by the Turkish state media on Thursday as slamming Western countries for the move. "On a day when we set our target of 60 million tourists, at a time when we announced that 51.5 million tourists came and we achieved a tourism income of $46 billion, they were on the verge of launching a new psychological war (against) Turkey. That is very clear,” said the minister during an event in Ankara. Turkey’s statistical institute (TUIK) revealed on Tuesday that the country earned $46.3 billion in the tourism sector last year, seeing a 53 percent surge compared to 2021, reported Turkish pro-government media. Nearly 45 million foreign tourists visited Turkey in 2022, with Germans making up nearly 13 percent of them. Only Istanbul attacked 16 million tourists, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry. Turkey on Thursday summoned the ambassadors and top representatives of nine Western countries to express its condemnation over the closure of their consulates in Istanbul, an unnamed diplomatic source told AFP.
