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Türkiye’s head of state was supposed to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz. However, Berlin’s focus on Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) deputy Açıkgöz’s “provoking statements” in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia, led Erdoğan to cancel his Berlin visit.
Reportedly, a consensus could not be reached during talks between Scholz’s Foreign Policy Adviser, Jens Plötner, and Erdoğan’s presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın on the content and timing of the visit. Furthermore, the recent appearance of AKP MP Mustafa Açıkgöz in Neuss was to be publicly criticized by Berlin, which Ankara would not accept.
On January 16, The Foreign Ministry of Germany summoned the Ambassador of Türkiye in Berlin after images leaked of a speech by Açıkgöz.
Açıkgöz called for the “annihilation” of supporters of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gülen movement, an organization alleged to have carried out 2016’s failed putsch, often referred to as FETÖ in Türkiye.
“Like in Türkiye, we will not give them the right to live in Germany. No matter to where they escape in the world, we will end the terrorist organization called PKK, the terrorist organization called FETÖ,” Açıkgöz declared at an event organized by the “Germany Democratic Idealist Turkish Associations Federation,” a grouping close to AKP’s coalition partner the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) assigned the association where the AKP MP his speech as a threat to domestic security.
The Ambassador of Türkiye to Germany was reminded that “there was no place for provocation or hate speech in Germany” and that “Ankara was warned” that such cases should not be repeated…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE…(bianet.org)
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