THE diplomatic rift between Turkey and the Netherlands widened yesterday following European criticism of the Turkish president’s power-grab.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia showed the “rotten character” of the Netherlands.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte hit back, calling Mr Erdogan’s comments a “disgusting distortion of history.”