Turkey says it offered condolences over teacher's beheading after France recalls envoy

Turkey on October 25 said that it had offered condolences to France over the brutal killing of the history teacher Samuel Paty after Paris claimed otherwise. France on Saturday announced that it was recalling its ambassador from Turkey over no official "token of condemnation or solidarity" after the terrorist attack in Conflans Sainte-Honorine. Paris further accused Ankara of stirring hateful propaganda against the Republic and also insulting President Emmanuel Macron. 

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"This conduct is unacceptable, especially from an allied nation. The French Ambassador to Turkey has been recalled and is returning to France this Sunday 25 October 2020 for consultations," the French foreign ministry said in a statement. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reportedly said that Macron needed his mental health checked over what he claimed his problem with Islam and Muslims. Erdogan slammed Macron for defending the right to show cartoons of Prophet Mohammed as freedom of expression. 

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Turkey's foreign ministry on Sunday said that it had conveyed condolences over the killing of the French teacher through its highest representative in France. "Horrified by this atrocious murder of a professor in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Nothing justifies it. My condolences to his loved ones," Turkey's Ambassador to France Dr. Ismail Hakki Musa had tweeted on October 17. 

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Samuel Paty's killing

Samuel Paty, a history teacher was killed on October 16 by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, who was born in Russia and had migrated to France. The attacker named Abdoulakh A. was killed by the French police on the same day in an operation a few kilometres away from the crime spot. A knife and an airsoft gun were recovered. Eleven people have been arrested in connection with the murder so far, including the grandfather and 17-year-old brother of the killed attacker. 

Paty was killed for showing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed while discussing freedom of expression in one of his classes. He chose the Prophet Mohammed cartoons because two brothers had attacked the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015 for publishing them. A few weeks ago a knife-wielding man had attacked people near the same spot over Charlie Hebdo's decision to republish the cartoon to mark the start of the trials of people involved in the 2015 attack. 

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