Erdoğan says Nobel academy rewarding human rights violations

Turkey has said it will join Albania and Kosovo in boycotting the Nobel awards ceremony in protest against 2019 literature prize laureate Peter Handke, who is known as a great admirer of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Turkey’s ambassador to Sweden, Hakkı Emre Yunt, has announced that he will not attend the ceremony, to which all ambassadors to Sweden have been invited.

Duvar English/Reuters

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the Nobel academy on Dec. 10 of rewarding human rights violations by awarding the prize for literature to Peter Handke, who has been criticized for backing late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Turkey has said it is joining Albania and Kosovo in boycotting the Nobel awards ceremony to protest the academy's choice of Austrian Handke for the prize.

"Giving the Nobel Literature Prize to a racist, who denies the genocide in Bosnia and defends war criminals, on December 10, Human Rights Day, will have no meaning other than the rewarding of human rights violations," Erdoğan said.

Turkey's ambassador to Sweden, Hakkı Emre Yunt, has told Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency that he will not attend the ceremony in the Swedish capital of Stockholm.

The academy's choice has been widely criticised.

Handke, now 77, expressed support for Milosevic and spoke at the funeral of the former Serbian president in 2006 after he died in detention during his trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Milosevic was charged with war crimes in connection with atrocities and ethnic cleansing committed by Serb forces in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1990s wars triggered by the disintegration of federal Yugoslavia.

On Dec. 6, Handke dismissed questions about his support for Milosevic. On Dec. 10, he will formally be handed the 9 million crown ($935,000) award and later attend the traditional Nobel banquet.

On Dec. 7, Turkey strongly condemned the awarding of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Handke. Turkish Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın called on the Swedish Academy to revert its decision, dubbing it a “shameless” one on his Twitter account.

In his tweet, Kalın warned that the prize would serve to encourage new genocides. "How can you award someone without moral consciousness and sense of shame?! To encourage new genocides?!" he said.

The Austrian playwright, novelist and poet Handke was awarded the 2019 prize in early October "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience," according to the statement by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.

Following the announcement of Handke as the prize winner, relatives of Bosnian War victims also condemned the decision.

Handke is known as a great admirer of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 at the international tribunal in The Hague on trial for war crimes and genocide.

"Stand up if you support the Serbs," Handke said in an article he published during the war in Kosovo.

He claimed that the Muslim Bosniaks in Sarajevo killed themselves and put the blame on the Serbs, and added that he never believed the Serbs committed genocide in Srebrenica.

Also, Handke visited former Serbian leader Milosevic in prison and made attempts to testify in his favor.

"I am here for Yugoslavia, for Serbia, for Slobodan Milosevic," Handke said, attending Milosevic's funeral in 2006.

Handke is the author of books such as "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" and "Slow Homecoming." He also co-wrote the script of the critically acclaimed 1987 film "Wings of Desire."