Erdogan Cancels Germany Trip after Row over Aggressive AKP Election Campaign

Ger­man media has report­ed that Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan can­celed a vis­it to Berlin fol­low­ing a dis­pute over sev­er­al cam­paign appear­ances by AKP politi­cians in Ger­many. Accord­ing to “Frank­futer Rundschau”:

Jan­u­ary 24, 2023 The scan­dal sur­round­ing the elec­tion cam­paigns of Turk­ish AKP deputies in Ger­many has far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions. The Frank­furter Rund­schau had report­ed exclu­sive­ly on the case of AKP MP Mehmet Acikgöz, who had giv­en a hate speech in a Grey Wolves mosque in Neuss, trig­ger­ing a wave of out­rage. The For­eign Office had sum­moned the Turk­ish ambas­sador and told him that “agi­ta­tion and hate speech have no place in Ger­many and that for­eign elec­tion cam­paign events must be approved by us in advance.” Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan is also like­ly to can­cel his vis­it to Ger­many planned for the end of Jan­u­ary. At least that is what the chair­man of the AKP lob­by orga­ni­za­tion UID, Kök­sal Kus, hint­ed at in a con­fer­ence last Sun­day. In addi­tion, events in Ham­burg. Mannheim and Cologne had been can­celed, Kus announced. (Trans­lat­ed using deepl.com.)

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The AKP lob­by orga­ni­za­tion Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats (UID) says it has “brought togeth­er 124 AKP deputies and 25 AKP may­ors with Turks in Europe” in the past six months. In Ger­many, the appear­ance by an AKP deputy in Neuss in Jan­u­ary caused out­rage. In his speech, the deputy denied the “right to live” to sup­port­ers of the Gülen move­ment and the Kur­dish ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion PKK and announced that he would “drag them out of their holes.” The Ger­man Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion recent­ly warned of con­flicts that could arise in Ger­many in the wake of the elec­tions in Turkey, which have been brought for­ward to May. The secu­ri­ty agency is mon­i­tor­ing “Turk­ish nation­al­ists and right-wing extrem­ists” on the one hand and “sup­port­ers of extrem­ist and ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions such as the PKK” on the other.

The UID describes itself as a vol­un­tary NGO  found­ed in 2004 that oper­ates in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries. Its aims include increas­ing the eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal, and social activ­i­ties of Turks and “sis­ter com­mu­ni­ties” abroad with­out alien­at­ing their iden­ti­ties and val­ues and com­bat­ting Islam­o­pho­bia. Ger­man media has described it as a lob­by­ing group for Pres­i­dent Erdoğan and his AKP that empha­sizes Turk­ish val­ues and cus­toms. The Ger­man Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion mon­i­tors the UID, describ­ing it as “nation­al­ist” and incom­pat­i­ble with Ger­many’s free demo­c­ra­t­ic order.