Updated

A Dutch lesbian couple has gone into hiding with their foster son after the boy's biological parents went on television in Turkey protesting that they consider the pair morally unfit to take care of their child.

The matter is threatening to overshadow an official visit by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Netherlands next week. Lodewijk Asscher, the Dutch vice prime minister, told reporters Friday political interference from Turkey would be "inappropriate."

He praised the foster parents for taking on a "child in danger" and defended Dutch social service policies as discriminating only on the basis of parenting ability.

The 9-year-old boy was removed from his biological parents' care — in the Netherlands — while he was still a baby.