Humza Yousaf defends inviting Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Scotland

First Minister Humza Yousaf has defended inviting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Scotland.

A freedom of information release to the Herald showed the offer was made at a controversial meeting between the pair at the COP28 summit in December.

Those talks sparked criticism from within the SNP due to concerns about Mr Erdogan’s treatment of Kurds.

Mr Yousaf said he would raise human rights concerns with Mr Erdogan were they to meet in Scotland.

It came after the first minister said he was not “comfortable” with the word “national” in the SNP’s name because it can be “misinterpreted”.

Asked about the invitation to the Turkish president, Mr Yousaf told reporters at Holyrood: “I said the next time he’s in the United Kingdom why not come up to Scotland.”

He added: “Why on earth would Scotland not look to seek to engage with a Nato ally and of course with somebody we would seek to do business and trade with?”

The first minister said he would raise human rights concerns “as I tend to do whenever I have meetings with international leaders”.

He added: “But I should say of course we do that in a way that also recognises we’re on a human rights journey as are other countries.”

Minutes from the meeting at the COP28 summit revealed the pair had discussed the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Mr Yousaf’s parents-in-law, who were trapped in Gaza for several weeks.

The SNP leader denied to reporters that the invite to Mr Erdogan was related to evacuating his family members from Gaza.

Mr Erdogan made a three-day state visit to the UK in 2018, which included a meeting with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. He also appeared alongside then-Prime Minister Theresa May at a media conference.

Kurdish-born SNP councillor Roza Salih said she was “disgusted” by Mr Yousaf’s meeting with Mr Erdogan in December as Turkey had stepped up attacks on Kurdish groups in Syria.

The UK government also threatened to withdraw support for Scottish ministers during overseas visits since no UK official was present.

“I’ve never really been comfortable with the fact that we have national in our party’s name,” he said.

The first minister explained that was not because he thought founding members of the SNP had any “far-right nationalist inclination” but because the term can be “misinterpreted”.

He told the podcast that the SNP had developed a “very strong brand” based on being a “civic national party”.

“We’re a party that believes it doesn’t matter really where you come from – what’s important is where are we going together,” the SNP leader said.

“And there’s no doubt about our politics being very routed in the left and the centre left of political discourse.”

Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said in 2017 that she would have changed the SNP’s name if she could “turn the clock back” as she believed the word “national” could be “hugely problematic”.

Mr Yousaf succeeded Ms Sturgeon as first minister in March last year.

Ms Sturgeon, her husband and former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell and treasurer Colin Beattie have since been arrested as part of the police investigation into SNP finances.

All were released without charge pending further investigation.

The arrests were part of Police Scotland’s Operation Branchform investigation, which centred on about £600,000 raised by the party for independence campaigning.

Mr Yousaf told the podcast: “The police investigation has been one of the most difficult times for the party.

“There’s no ifs or buts or maybes about it. There has clearly been an impact in terms of how we were perceived by the public and issues of trust and I’ve got to work hard, as I hope I have been doing over the last ten months.

“I’ve got to work hard to make sure that people know, whatever the outcome of that police investigation is, that the SNP is a party that they can trust.

“It’s been difficult, no doubt, for those involved. But difficult for us as a party and it’s certainly been a challenge for me in my first ten months.”

Mr Yousaf also spoke of the weeks that his parents-in-law were under siege in Gaza after the conflict broke out in October. They became trapped during a trip to visit relatives.

Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, from Dundee, were eventually able to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing.

The first minister said: “The four weeks that my mother-in-law and father-in-law were in…