From the Office of the Sôgmô
Statement of Restraint
A Statement from the Office of the Sôgmô of the State of Sandus on recent allegations of wrong-doing by Lostisland PM Deniz Tezcan:
An official of the Federal Republic of Lostisland has recently been on record in the Pavlovian Pravda as saying sensitive and outright false accusations concerning the State of Sandus. M. Tezcan, Prime Minister of the Federal Republic, spoke politically harmful words in concerns to our State’s anti-racism and social-progress policy, words charged with a political motivation for rising tensions between Lostisland and Juclandia. These words were also unwittingly used to bring the State of Sandus into these escalating tensions as he made connections between our State and a metaphoric “dark cloud” above the intermicronational community.
M. Tezcan was convinced that Sandus was indifferent when offence was garnered by Juclandian King Ciprian’s comments on Russians and Turks, a comment the Sôgmô stated was not overtly derogatory yet could have been inferred wrongly; the Sôgmô relayed concern to the Juclandian King, as he relayed concern of escalating and unnecessary tensions between Lostisland and Juclandia to both heads of state.
Unlike M. Tezcan’s accusations, Sandus fights racism even when it isn’t in our best interests. It clearly was not in our best interest when M. Tezcan’s predecessor state aided in the removal of Sandus from its historic organisation; it has clearly not been in the best interest of Sandus for the past many months which our State has been under immense foreign pressure to end this policy. We are, however, committed to both diplomacy and to social progress, policies M. Tezcan would not be aware of unless he was inside Sandus. This Office has been in contact with both heads of state and has sent messages of caution.
We therefore warn that we will not tolerate any defamation of our State on the momentous occasion of the Second Anniversary of the Foundation. We find it especially harmful to our State that such a premier should implicate this nation into an on-going diplomatic conflict between his nation and another, a conflict we have expressed for a desire for peace to both sides. The Office of the Sôgmô shall be in contact with both the President and Premier of the Federal Republic, as well as the King of Juclandia, so as to ascertain that tensions do not rise further from these sorts of wrong accusations against our State and from this sort of rhetoric coming from both sides.
— Sôgmô Sörgel
sandus.org 
It does not, however, seem like Sandus has done anything to counter the racist remarks by the King of Juclandia. Which is disappointing, considering the – sometimes ad absurdum – opposition of Sandus to other micronational leaders who have made remarks similar to this one. To me, the only explanation is that countering remarks perceived as racist is, to the State of Sandus, a means in the political sphere rather than an end.
And about the remark itself: Deniz Tezcan resides and works in the Netherlands most of the time, has the Dutch nationality and speaks fluent Dutch. Calling him a Turk can’t refer to his area of residence, or where he works, or what language he generally speaks. What is left is ethnicity, something you’ve used to accuse me of racism after bringing into the discussion regarding Moroccans residing in the Netherlands, which is why I do consider Ciprian’s remarks simply racist.
J’accuse.
In the statement itself, it was announced that Sandus had indeed contacted the Juclandian government and expressed concern and informed them to not make offensive statements. To consider it otherwise is wrong. We do not, however, consider the comments to be racist: they could have been inferred as such, but — upon reading the comments for ourselves — we considered it a comment on the references brought up before in the conversation. As we are not observers of the conversation as it happened, we thought the comments were misplaced but did not overtly derogatory. In sum, we have expressed caution over the comments but did not consider the comments to be derogatory.
There was a reference to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, as well as a reference to translations between Russian and English. Whilst we consider the conversation highly nonsensical and unimportant, both argued over these two references: therefore, it is an inference to believe he was speaking of M. Mar and M. Tezcan. However, it was clear both Mar and Tezcan were offended by the comments and, upon recognising their offense, we expressed our concern for M. Ciprian to watch his words as they were highly misplaced.
You might accuse, but your accusations are contrary to our actions and information in the above statement.
Lostislandic reaction: http://prntscr.com/109zsb
The title of this article is misleading: the supposed allegations were made not by the Government of Lostisland or any official governmental agency, but by an individual citizen, Deniz Tezcan, in his private interview to an independent newspaper. As far as I’m concerned, the Government of Lostisland took no official stance on the incident, and as President I believe that this issue should be resolved between the two individuals, Mr. Tezcan and Mr. Soergel, without involving official authorities of both countries.
However, the individual in question is the Prime Minister of the Federal Government, an official of the Federal Republic. He may not of said them in an official capacity, but he did as a representative of his federal government. It is the consideration of this State that his comments were critical of our policies upon anti-racism and social-progress, thereby validating the link between his office and the point of view of the Federal Government. The title is therefore not misleading, even if he was interviewed in an unofficial capacity: he was interviewed as Prime Minister, therefore the relation between him and the Lostisland state certainly validate the title of the article.
The question of the Federal Government’s stance is questionable now, as the Prime Minister has expressed incorrect and inaccurate statements on Sandus’s State policies.
The Central People’s Government has contacted Prime Minister Tezcan upon the advice of the President, who recused himself from responsibility by stating that his office held little power; however, due to communications issues, the Prime Minister told the Office of the Sôgmô he had nothing more to add, instead telling the Office to speak with the President. We will continue to pursue diplomacy in this situation, but it is dear to us that Sandus is wrongly and unwittingly brought into a diplomatic dispute that does not involve us. Such comments were misplaced and should not have been made at all, as M. Tezcan was simply unaware of Sandum actions against the Juclandian government in concerns to M. Ciprian’s comments.
While it is out of question that Mr. Tezcan is affiliated to the Government of Lostisland and that he helds the highest position in it, personal and governmental stances shall nonetheless be separated. When a Lostislandic official makes an address in his official capacity, representing the position of his Government, this news is published on our official, not third-party website, like in this case:
http://lostisland.org/news/mar_and_pakhomov_address_lostisland_on_ignatiev_s_resignation/2013-02-06-245
However, in this case Mr. Tezcan was giving an interview to an independent newspaper, and in fact, the private character of his statements was outlined in the very beginning:
“…the Prime Minister of Lostisland and Prince of Pavlov Deniz Tezcan kindly agreed to give an exclusive interview to the Pavlovian Pravda correspondent, talking about *his* opinion on such issues…”
Therefore, irrespectively of character and number of the offices occupied by him, Mr. Tezcan was not speaking as an official representative of any institution he is affiliated to, and in fact, the Prime Minister of Lostisland is only one of his positions of power – i.e., only recently Mr. Tezcan was crowned the King of Gastón (a lusophone micronation and former GUM Full member), which however doesn’t mean that he was representing the Gastonese position in the interview. Same applies to Lostisland.
Finally, should or shouldn’t such comments be made, this is not for us to decide – freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Federal Republic, and what our citizens say in private interviews is not the business of the state. The Government of Lostisland is only then responsible for the words of its officials when such are said by them in official capacity, representing the Government’s official position.
Whether or not he submitted this interview from his private or public perspective, the comments were unnecessarily political and anyone should have realised that bringing in a neutral third party would have been provocative and unnecessary. However, as the head of government of Lostisland, M. Tezcan has made Lostisland as a whole in opposition to Sandus: he is the leader of his micronation and has been on record of attacking our State and its policies. The entire stance of the Lostisland government is now questionable: though you claim it is not an official stance, if the highest official of Lostisland has these untrue beliefs then what sort of policies will he endeavour to fulfil and create between Sandus and Lostisland? Clearly he will create very hostile policies, just as he has just now made the waters between both nations hostile as well. He may have said such in a private manner, but his high-ranking nature means that his words and his comments are very scrutinised — by Sandus and by any nation. Surely, M. Tezcan would have been aware of this when he made those comments, thence we are certainly justified in analysing the Federal Government as being hostile to the State of Sandus by wrongly implicating us in a diplomatic dispute with another nation.
Finally, it is not an issue of rights. We have not, in any way, suggested censorship of M. Tezcan, thereby your irrelevant implications of such are wildly off-topic and delusional: however, it must be recognised that his comments were especially harmful to the State of Sandus and, as Sandus has been at relatively good terms with Lostisland, that these comments would have not been received well by the State of Sandus and would have greatly shifted the diplomatic relations between Sandus and Lostisland. Now these relations are shifting, at the fault of the Prime Minister, and neither the President nor the Prime Minister are accepting our efforts to express why these comments were harmful to us or have apologised for them: rather, they are carelessly ignoring our concerns and are wilfully continuing on the trajectory of harming Sandus on the international stage, by which the State of Sandus will be justified in retaliating upon that stage.
As an addendum, clearly M. Tezcan considers peaceful and amicable relations between Sandus and Lostisland as unimportant, as well, given by his nonchalant response to the above statement calling for diplomacy and a warning of making such comments.
Given that both the President and Prime Minister are not heeding the Office of the Sôgmô’s advice and are aggressively pursuing a path of opposition to the State, the Central People’s Government shall not be liable for increased tensions between Sandus and Lostisland. Rather, that effect will be of the same Federal Government that has almost purposefully opposed us at all steps of this provocation.