Yeşilgöz wanted to speak to Wilders about it a day after the tweet, but he did not respond to calls or messages from her. “She was the Secretary of State for Climate Affairs at the time, so what do I do with this?”
While discussing the government’s statement, Wilders said that by “their” he meant members of the VVD, not people of Turkish origin. “VVD would rather see me disappear under the rug.” He says he will not retract any statement.
Parties attack Wilders because of his tweet
The coalition parties attacked Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders over a tweet at the start of the debate over the government’s statement.
Jan Paternot, head of the D66 party, addressed Wilders right after the first sentence of his contribution to the tweet. “I was hoping Mr. Wilders would start with an apology, but it starts with a different story.” Paternott calls it a “totally stupid and illogical suggestion” made by Wilders in his tweet. He wrote that Yeşilgöz, a “VVD member of Turkish origin”, might raise his security and that she hoped Wilders would “disappear under the grass”.
VVD leader Sophie Hermanns wants to know why Wilders did not respond to calls and messages from Yeşilgöz after she called him to discuss the matter. “Why do you have the nerve to send such a hateful tweet, but not to call back?” Wilders did not consider it necessary to re-call, because Yesilgoz was still Secretary of State for Climate at the time of the call.
CDA chair Peter Herma calls this an “excuse”. Hirma says Wilders “feels his main story is not going anywhere”. But that the opposition leader refers to the VVD party as a group that does not want to protect it, the CDU member is completely angry. So Wilders suggests, “a political party in this house wanted to kill him,” says Herma. “This speaks more about Mr. Wilders than it does about the Cabinet.”
Since then, Wilders has been in contact with Yeşilgöz. This week they are talking about it. Wilders doesn’t think it’s going to be a “nice conversation”, “but I’m going anyway.”
