Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya

Turkish Family and Social Policies Ministry has announced plans to support TV series that promote family life and which are aimed at children. 

The ministry commenced talks with the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) on the issue and is working to determine the criteria regarding the support, daily Habertürk reported May 23. 

Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya refuted on May 4 reports that decisions on granting custody of children to foster parents was being affected by the gender of the children.

Controversy had been stirred over reports that local officials in the Aegean province of İzmir were not giving away girls to parents who already have sons. 

Family Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya has filed a lawsuit against the Netherlands over her deportation from the country after she was barred from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam last month to campaign for the April 16 referendum on charter changes. 

Turkish citizens living in the Netherlands are showing "great interest" in participating in Turkey's referendum, a diplomat has told Anadolu Agency.        

Turkey's consul-general in Rotterdam, Sadin Ayyıldız, said 72,000 registered expatriates had voted since April 5.        

Rotterdam's mayor gave his authorization on March 16 for a pro-Turkish protest against the Dutch police's handling of a violent demonstration in the port city on March 11.

Images showing the name of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan written on ballots in the March 15 general elections in the Netherlands have gone viral on social media.

The trend has previously circulated among European countries in various elections.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Munipality city council on March 15 unanimously terminated its sister city protocol with the Netherland's port city Rotterdam, amid an ongoing diplomatic row between the two countries.

The move comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Erdoğan said he ordered Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım to end the metropolis' sister city pact with Rotterdam.

One significant difficulty facing us while evaluating the situation that emerged last weekend in the Netherlands is that no such incident has ever occurred in recent history. There is no other example of a foreign minister's plane not being able to land in an allied country.

Some European Union countries cannot tolerate Turkey's rise as an emerging power, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on March 13, accusing them of working against the "Yes" vote in Turkey's April 16 constitutional referendum.      
 

Turkey will apply to three high-level international organizations to complain about the Netherlands' alleged breach of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations on late March 11 by detaining Turkey's chargé d'affaires and other diplomats and by temporarily seizing cars with diplomatic plates, diplomatic sources have said.