Turkey: Withdrawing from Eurovision was the right choice says Erdogan!

It is known that Turkey has abstained from the Eurovision Song Contest for the last 12 years with their last participation dating back in 2012 when the contest took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, a country that Turkey considers as a brother nation.

From 2013 onwards, the country decided to stay away from the competition, initially expressing its opposition to the regulations of the contest, including the status of the Big 5 countries and the introduction of the juries that determine 50% of the final result. Then came the addition of Turkey’s discomfort with the visibility of LGBTQI people with the then director general of the country’s public broadcaster, TRT, making a direct reference to drag personality Conchita Wurst who won the competition in 2014 on behalf of Austria.

Today the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself, in his political statements made a direct reference to Turkey’s abstention from the song contest. Specifically, he stated that:

‘It’s been 12 years since we didn’t participate at this disgraceful contest. It was a right decision by us. It’s impossible to find normal person at Eurovision and it promotes weird people because it’s a deliberate attempt to remove gender term.’

You can watch the relevant statement from a post on X below

Turkish PM:

‘It’s been 12 years since we didn’t participate at this disgraceful contest. It was a right decision by us. It’s impossible to find normal person at Eurovision and it promotes weird people because it’s a deliberate attempt to remove gender term.’#eurovision pic.twitter.com/07qwLvAh6X

— ESC AZERBAIJAN (@12xal) May 20, 2024

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