The incident took place on Tuesday as President Barack Obama was preparing to leave a panel discussion at the fifth annual Clinton Global Initiative, which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was also scheduled to attend a short time after Obama's departure.
A group of security agents and police officers converged on a corner of the tent housing Obama's limousine yelling and shouting and appeared to use force to move individuals away from the tent. Following the incident, instead of attending the event at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, Erdoğan chose to return to the Plaza Hotel, where he has been staying.
“I condemn the treatment of the prime minister. … In response to such treatment, it would be better if the prime minister had returned to Turkey instead of returning to his hotel,” Oktay Vural, deputy chairman of the MHP's parliamentary group, told reporters on Thursday.
Kınıklıoğlu, speaking to reporters in Pittsburg, where he was accompanying Erdoğan during a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries, said US security personnel involved in the incident had already been replaced, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally expressed her regret during a meeting with Erdoğan.
“Our prime minister has acted with the solemnity which befits a Turkish prime minister,” Kınıklıoğlu said, criticizing Vural for distorting the incident.
