Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the issue of Canadians detained in Turkey in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China.
While he told Canadian media about his talks with the Turkish and Indonesian leaders concerning the fate of three Canadians detained in those countries, he declined to reveal what he had heard in return.
Turkish authorities detained two Turkish-Canadian men after a botched coup attempt on July 15. The authorities accuse the detainees of having links to the leaders of the putsch.
The two deny the charges as well as any links to the uprising.
“It is important for me to demonstrate that Canada cares deeply about its citizens in difficulties abroad and we need to make sure they are getting proper consular access and the kind of support through rule of law that is expected,” The Huffington Post quoted Trudeau as saying on Monday.
President Erdoğan’s government has cracked down on suspected coup plotters and what critics say are political opponents. Nearly 150,000 public servants have been dismissed by government decree during an ongoing emergency rule. The massive purges in all state institutions are unprecedented in scope and scale and never before seen in Turkey’s republican history.