German tire manufacturer Continental erases Turkey on map, apologizes in Turkishhttps://t.co/8dQfDWYO8k pic.twitter.com/2JfVM9p2iO
— DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) February 11, 2018
German tire manufacturer Continental, which runs operations in the Turkish market, released an advertisement on its official website showing its Powertrain network across the globe, with Turkey erased from the world map.
The map removed a large portion of Turkey's borders and portrayed the whole area as part of the Mediterranean Sea.
With mounting pressure on social media, Continental's Turkey subsidiary released a statement in Turkish on its Twitter account: "We have come to realize that a video included a graphical mistake thanks to shares on social media. We would like to extend thanks to all social media users for bringing up that mistake. We would like to emphasize the video was immediately erased from the website. We are deeply sorry for the mistake and apologize to the Turkish public," the statement said.
The global Facebook and Twitter accounts of Continental also released an apology statement, in which the contents of the "faulty" video were not elaborated.
"Today we were made aware that unfortunately a faulty video file has been uploaded to the Continental Automotive Internet pages. We thank the social media community for making us aware of this fact and withdrew the video immediately. We apologize for this mistake," the statement read.
Continental International told the Daily Sabah that the error was an isolated case, which the company regrets.
"Even in large, global organizations, sometimes people make mistakes. In this case, the error was noticed too late to correct it, however, as soon we heard of it, we reacted immediately and pulled the video from circulation," the company said in a written statement.
"We regard Turkey, the Turkish people and all cultures on Earth with the greatest of respect at all times as a matter of course. A long, successful business and societal relationship connects us with Turkey and the Turkish people in particular, one rich with tradition and which we wish to continue in the future. We believe in our relationship with Turkey and would like to further strengthen and develop it," the statement continued.
The company also assured that measures were introduced to avoid such similar incidents in the future.