Politics and Leaders' Wives
SNP councillor, Nadia El Nakla (wife of Humza Yousaf) is being credited with helping pressurise John Swinney into apologising for the Scottish Government meeting with the deputy ambassador of Israel.
Government urged caution over Nadia El-Nakla’s Turkey trip
Scottish government officials urged caution over Nadia El-Nakla’s trip to Istanbul for a conference on the crisis in the Middle East after she received a formal invitation from the Turkish consulate, documents have shown.
The first minister’s wife visited Turkey in November for the “One Heart for Palestine” event, where she spoke alongside leaders’ spouses from Qatar, Turkmenistan and Libya. El-Nakla was accompanied by an SNP press officer.
The Scottish government insisted at the time that the visit was made in a purely personal capacity after an invitation from Emine Erdogan, the wife of the Turkish president.
However, internal government emails obtained under freedom of information laws show that an invitation to the event, and for a call with Emine Erdogan, was extended on several times through official channels.
The Turkish consulate-general approached the Scottish government’s department for external affairs on or around November 6, seeking to arrange a call between Turkey’s first lady and El-Nakla in which she would invite the first minister’s wife to a “meeting she plans to host … on the crisis in Gaza”.
At the conference El-Nakla called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza - ESRA BILGIN/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
The head of European relations at the Scottish government then wrote to Humza Yousaf, the first minister, and Angus Robertson, the cabinet secretary for external affairs, recommending a “holding response” to an invitation from the government of Turkey while “officials seek further information about the event from the Turkish consulate-general”.
The following day, Yousaf responded that his wife “should absolutely do the call” but agreed that further information on the event was needed.
• Who is Nadia El-Nakla, Humza Yousaf’s ‘activist’ wife?
On November 8, one week before the summit, Erdogan’s wife rang El-Nakla on her personal phone. An official said that the call took place “unexpectedly and unsupported” — indicating no prior briefing was given to El-Nakla and no official listened into the call, which is the usual protocol for official calls.
The following Monday, Robertson’s office said that it had received a letter from the Turkish consulate. Yousaf’s principal private secretary replied to say: “Please be advised that the first minister’s wife intends to take up the invitation to attend the event in Turkey in a personal capacity. The invitation is therefore not to be managed in a government space. Can you let me know if you are still receiving approaches from the consulate?”
The Foreign Office in London was informed of the invitation but, after being told on the Monday afternoon that El-Nakla attended in a personal capacity, decided that “no official assistance was being given to her”.
The documents have been released days after The Times revealed that Yousaf was offered a “new year phone call” for talks with Erdogan after inviting him to Scotland when they met at the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai last month. Erdogan has been widely condemned for his treatment of Kurds within his own country.
• Alarm bells ringing in SNP as attention turns to Humza Yousaf’s wife
El-Nakla, 39, whose parents were trapped in Gaza for almost a month, used the event at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul to call for an “immediate ceasefire”. On the eve of her parents’ safe passage through the Rafah crossing in the territory, she gave a 30-minute interview to the news website Middle East Eye, conducted at Bute House, Edinburgh, the first minister’s official residence.
Sources told The Sunday Times that there was no government involvement in those arrangements and that they were made by El-Nakla herself. Critics have said that no previous first minister’s partner had used the official residence for “overt political activity” and accused her of becoming the most vocal and prominent first ministerial spouse in 25 years of devolution.
An SNP Dundee city councillor, El-Nakla has frequently spoken of the plight of her brother, who is a doctor in Gaza, and his family. This month it was revealed that Turkey had helped facilitate the safe passage of her sister-in-law and her four children out of Gaza into Turkey. However her brother was forced to stay behind after his name was removed from a list of refugees.
Meanwhile, Erdogan has called Israel a “terrorist state” in the conflict and criticised western countries for designating Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
A Scottish government spokesman said: “The Scottish government was not represented at the meeting in Istanbul hosted by the first lady of Turkey. The first minister’s wife attended the meeting in a personal capacity.”
