Humza Yousaf defends inviting Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Scotland
- Published
Humza Yousaf met the Turkish president at COP28
First Minister Humza Yousaf has defended inviting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Scotland.
A freedom of information release to The Herald, external showed the offer was made at a controversial meeting between the pair at the COP28 summit in December.
Those talks sparked criticism from within the SNP due to concerns about Mr Erdogan's treatment of Kurds.
Mr Yousaf said he would raise human rights concerns with Mr Erdogan were they to meet in Scotland.
The invite has been criticised by the SNP's government partners, the Greens.
It came after the first minister said he was not "comfortable" with the word "national" in the SNP's name because it can be "misinterpreted".
Asked about the invitation to the Turkish president, Mr Yousaf told reporters at Holyrood: "I said the next time he's in the United Kingdom why not come up to Scotland."
He added: "Why on earth would Scotland not look to seek to engage with a Nato ally and of course with somebody we would seek to do business and trade with?"
The first minister said he would raise human rights concerns "as I tend to do whenever I have meetings with international leaders".
He added: "But I should say of course we do that in a way that also recognises we're on a human rights journey as are other countries."
Minutes from the meeting at the COP28 summit, external revealed the pair had discussed the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Mr Yousaf's parents-in-law, who were trapped in Gaza for several weeks.
The SNP leader denied to reporters that the invite to Mr Erdogan was related to evacuating his family members from Gaza.
Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer criticised the first minister's comments
The Turkish government under Mr Erodgan, who has led the country for more than 20 years, is a staunch supporter of Hamas and the Palestinian cause.
In a post on X, external, formerly Twitter, Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer accused the Turkish regime of "ethnic cleansing of the Kurds", bombing civilians in Syria and Iraq, imprisoning opposition politicians "on nonsense charges" and shutting down independent media and human rights groups.
Turkey has conducted military operations against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases inside Turkey and across the border in Syria and Iraq as part of what it says are efforts to prevent terror attacks.
The PKK, which has Marxist-Leninist roots, was formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.
Mr Greer went on to say the Scottish government "wouldn't roll out the red carpet" for Russian President Vladimir Putin or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Scottish Conservative external affairs spokesperson Donald Cameron: "The public will question if Humza Yousaf's invitation to President Erdogan to visit Scotland overstepped the mark, especially given his record on a number of topics."
Mr Erdogan made a three-day state visit to the UK in 2018, which included a meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. He also appeared alongside then-Prime Minister Theresa May at a media conference.
Kurdish-born SNP councillor Roza Salih said she was "disgusted" by Mr Yousaf's meeting with Mr Erdogan in December as Turkey had stepped up attacks on Kurdish groups in Syria.
The UK government also threatened to withdraw support for Scottish ministers during overseas visits since no UK official was present.
The Turkish government has been accused of human rights abuses against Kurds
Before being questioned about the invite to the Turkish president, Mr Yousaf told BBC Radio 4's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast that he had concerns about his own party's title.
"I've never really been comfortable with the fact that we have national in our party's name," he said.
The first minister explained that was not because he thought founding members of the SNP had any "far-right nationalist inclination" but because the term can be "misinterpreted".
He told the podcast that the SNP had developed a "very strong brand" based on being a "civic national party".
"We're a party that believes it doesn't matter really where you come from - what's important is where are we going together," the SNP leader said.
"And there's no doubt about our politics being very routed in the left and the centre left of political discourse."
Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said in 2017 that she would have changed the SNP's name if she could "turn the clock back" as she believed the word "national" could be "hugely problematic".
Mr Yousaf succeeded Ms Sturgeon as first minister in March last year.
Ms Sturgeon, her husband and former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell and treasurer Colin Beattie have since been arrested as part of the police investigation into SNP finances.
All were released without charge pending further investigation.
The arrests were part of Police Scotland's Operation Branchform investigation, which centred on about £600,000 raised by the party for independence campaigning.
Mr Yousaf told the podcast the police investigation had been "one of the most difficult times for the party" and that it had to work hard to rebuild trust.
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was arrested and released without charge
Mr Yousaf also spoke of the weeks that his parents-in-law were under siege in Gaza after the conflict broke out in October. They became trapped during a trip to visit relatives before eventually leaving through the Rafah crossing.
He said for him and his wife Nadia El-Nakla it had been "probably the lowest points" of their lives.
Pressed on whether he would accuse Israel of "genocide", Mr Yousaf said any potential breach of international law should be investigated by the International Court of Justice.
Mr Yousaf told the podcast the benefits of being first minister included being able to "make somebody's day" but that "press intrusion" was one of the major drawbacks.
"There's no getting away from it and your family, your children, being in the public," he said.
Humza Yousaf's apparent attempt to distance himself from the concept of nationalism seems at odds with his own words as recently as last year when he was running for the leadership of the Scottish National Party.
Addressing SNP members at the first hustings of the contest in Cumbernauld, in March 2023, Mr Yousaf appeared to describe himself as a "nationalist" in response to a question about a dispute with the UK government over proposed changes to gender law.
"The starting principle I would say, for any nationalist, the starting principle must be to defend Scotland's parliament and defend Scotland's democracy," he said, adding: "From me, I'm unapologetic, unequivocal. We must stand up to Westminster's power grab."
In 2017, Mr Yousaf's predecessor as SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon also expressed concern about the party's name and its association with nationalism.
Yet she too had previously embraced the term "nationalists," to describe herself and her supporters, for example using it five times during her speech to the party's 2014 spring conference in Aberdeen, including in this phrase:
"Well, my fellow nationalists, after 80 years of campaigning, the last mile of our journey to independence is upon us."
That was a reference to the history of the Scottish National Party which was founded in 1934 by the merger of the National Party of Scotland under the socialist RB Cunninghame Graham and the Scottish Party of the more right-wing Duke of Montrose.
In more recent times, defenders of the concept of Scottish nationalism have often argued that it could not be further from the "blood and soil" version associated with the Nazis and is actually a "civic nationalism" built on values rather than identity.
Mr Yousaf used a slightly different phrase in this interview, describing the SNP as a "civic national party".
There is an irony that within hours of making those comments, the First Minister was suggesting that an authoritarian leader, known for his slogan "One Nation, One Flag, One Motherland, One State", should visit Scotland.
The SNP's opponents sometimes scoff at 'civic nationalism', accusing the party of window-dressing a discredited, if not dangerous, concept.
Of course Scottish nationalism does not stand alone. These islands contain a patchwork of nationalisms - British, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh and more besides.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that the promotion and defence of some of these identities and their associated ideologies has led to a great deal of blood being spilled.
It is Scotland's great good fortune - or perhaps it is good judgment - that the debate here about this most controversial of concepts remains peaceful and democratic.