President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed the Netherlands' brutal treatment of a Turkish ministerial convoy in the Dutch city of Rotterdam Tuesday by alluding to the country's role in the Srebrenica genocide of Bosnians in 1995.

Speaking at an event celebrating March 14 Medicine Day, Erdoğan said that the Netherlands' attitude toward Turkish Family Affairs Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya's convoy was not surprising.

"Netherlands did not surprise us, we already knew the low morality, the civilization level and manners of Dutch. We know it from their role in the Srebrenica genocide," the Turkish president said; referring to the Dutch peacekeeper forces that allowed Serbian death squads to enter the so-called ''safe enclave,'' and round up Bosnians before murdering them en masse.

"Nobody should try to give us morality lessons, especially not those who have blood on their hands," Erdoğan said.

"By displaying state-sponsored terror on Saturday, the Netherlands has greatly damaged EU, its values which are no longer the bloc of laws, freedoms," Erdoğan elaborated, noting that the Dutch authorities disrespected all international norms and terms.

The role of the Dutch peacekeepers at Srebrenica has cast a long shadow in the Netherlands, with a cabinet resigning in 2002 after a report laid some of the blame for the atrocity on the government. In 2015, the Dutch authorities recognized the role of their ''peacekeepers'' in the genocide of Bosnians, and accepted an appeal to pay compensation to the family members of the victims.

The ongoing row between Turkey and the Netherlands escalated into a diplomatic crisis after Dutch authorities blocked the family minister's convoy from entering the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam Saturday, following the Dutch government's decision to deny landing permission to the plane carrying the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu earlier that day.