UK government threatens Scottish leader after meeting Turkish president

Published December 11,2023

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Newly appointed British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has threatened to withdraw Foreign Office assist for Scottish ministers after Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf met the Turkish president with out the presence of UK officers.

In a letter to the Scottish National Party (SNP) authorities, Cameron mentioned it was a breach of protocol for Yousaf to have mentioned Gaza and different issues with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the COP28 summit in Dubai on Dec. 1. The two leaders share widespread grounds on Gaza, the place Israeli air and floor assaults have killed almost 18,000 Palestinians, and name for an instantaneous cease-fire.

Cameron warned the SNP’s exterior affairs secretary, saying he would take a tougher strategy to the breach.

“The absence of an FCDO [Foreign Office] official at this meeting contravenes the protocols in our guidance on FCDO support to devolved government ministers’ overseas visits,” the letter shared by the BBC learn.

The overseas secretary mentioned the assembly breached devolution protocols as a UK official was not given “sufficient advance notice” of the placement of the assembly to have the ability to attend.

However, a spokesperson for Yousaf informed media {that a} Foreign Office official had been invited however “was elsewhere at the time it was convenient for the Turkish president to meet.”

James Cleverly, the previous overseas secretary, issued the same warning when Yousaf met the Icelandic prime minister with out UK officers in the summertime.

Yousaf has been extremely important of the UK authorities’s full assist to Israel and its army invasion into the Gaza Strip.

The Scottish chief’s in-laws have been trapped in Gaza for a few month earlier than being evacuated and returning again to Scotland. The British authorities’s reluctance to fulfill or focus on the matter with Yousaf on the time was closely criticized in Scotland.