Nato sorry after Erdogan pulls troops over Norway’s insult

ISTANBUL: Nato apologised to Turkey on Friday after Ankara pulled its troops from a military exercise in Norway where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the country’s modern founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had been portrayed as enemies of the alliance.
The alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, himself Norwegian, moved quickly to say sorry after an angry intervention by Erdogan over an embarrassing episode that risked creating a further rift between Turkey and its allies.
The incidents took place during Nato’s "Trident Javelin" exercise in the southern Norwegian city of Stavanger aimed at increasing coordination between the allies at headquarters level, which wound up Friday.
Erdogan said that Ankara had withdrawn its 40 troops from the exercise in protest, adding: "It’s not possible to have this kind of alliance".
Norway’s Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen, speaking to AFP, also expressed "regret" over the incident. Turkey’s foreign ministry said that an image of a statue of Ataturk had been used to portray an enemy protagonist in a scenario at the exercise.