ANKARA Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's possible nomination for NATO top post over the publication of cartoons satirizing Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him).
"A very serious reaction emerged in countries with Muslim populations during the cartoon crisis," Erdogan said in an interview with NTV television on Friday, March 27.
"Now these countries have started to call us and tell us not to allow it."
In 2005, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper printed 12 cartoons including portrayals of the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
Rasmussen has defended the blasphemous drawings on claims of freedom of expression, refusing to apologize for the cartoons publication.
The current NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer would step down on July 31.
Rasmussen is a favorite by Washington and NATO's big powers for the alliance's top post but Turkey is seen as the only stumbling block.
NATO leaders meet in Strasbourg, France and neighboring Kehl in Germany on April 3-4 for a 60th anniversary summit, but it is unclear whether the next secretary general of the 26-nation alliance will be announced there.
Erdogan said he has explained his objections personally to the Danish premier during a lengthy phone call.
"I told him about the annoyance of the public," he said.
"I told him he can appreciate what that means."
Erdogan said Rasmussen had also failed to act on Turkish requests to ban a Denmark-based Kurdish TV station, seen as the mouthpiece of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"It has been four years now and they have not finalized the issue," he said.
"We are seriously disturbed."
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara, the US and the European Union, has waged an armed campaign for self-rule in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey since 1984.
The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
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