AMSTERDAM - Security measures were tightened on Tuesday in and around Turkish representations in the Netherlands after the molotov cocktail attack on Turkey's Embassy in The Hague.
Security points were formed in front of the gates of the embassy building while measures were tightened in the consulate general buildings in Rotterdam and Deventer.
Turkey's Ambassador in The Hague Tacan Ildem told A.A correspondent that they had asked Dutch authorities to tighten security measures and said, ''measures should have been taken before this attack.''
Ildem noted that Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had expressed their sorrow over the attack and said that they would take every kind of measures.
Ed Kronenburg, the Dutch Foreign Ministry's Director General for European Affairs, came to the embassy in the evening and once more conveyed quick recovery message of the Dutch government, Ildem stated.
Ildem said that Kronenburg informed him about security measures taken after the attack.
Noting that they welcomed sensitivity of Dutch officials about security measures to be taken after the attack, Ildem said that they had not received any concrete information about the identity of the assailant yet and therefore, they did not know the reason of the attack.
Meanwhile, sources said that assailant who hurled molotov cocktail on Turkey's Embassy in The Hague was 16 years old not 26 as previously announced.
The sources noted that the assailant brought the molotov cocktail in a bag to start a fire in the embassy building.
The assailant was from Haarlem city, the sources said but refrained from giving any information about his/her identity.
According to the Dutch Justice Ministry, the assailant did not stage the attack for political or terrorist purposes. The Ministry thinks that the assailant who came to the embassy building in the morning left the building after an argument with officials and then came to the building again and staged the attack.
Five people, including the assailant, were slightly injured in the attack. Sources said that one person was injured as he/she tried to jump out of the window on the first floor of the building in panic.
All the injured were immediately treated in hospitals.
An explosion occurred at the Turkish Embassy in The Hague on Tuesday as a molotov cocktail was hurled on the building. The explosion caused financial damage in the building.
(BRC) 04.11.2003