German and Turkey in war of words over political rallies

Germany’s departing president Joachim Gauck has stoked up further Berlin’s escalating diplomatic crisis with Ankara, saying President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s push for an “authoritarian” system has called into question the country’s democratic credentials. A week of unravelling bilateral relations ended on Friday with a bomb threat phoned in to the mayor of a southern German town who cancelled a planned political rally on Thursday for next month’s constitutional referendum in Turkey. An official in Gaggenau, in Germany’s Baden region, said a caller made the bomb threat to the town hall about 7.30am on Friday, citing the cancelled event. The building was evacuated but nothing was found and the all-clear was sounded four hours later. After Gaggenau cancelled the Thursday evening event, ostensibly for reasons of public safety, Ankara hauled in the German ambassador for a formal complaint.

Terrorism charges

Meanwhile, Germany stepped up concerns over German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel, in prison facing terrorism charges, and plans for a presidential political system in Turkey. “It makes me deeply sad to see that a liberal democracy is slipping ever further away in the country and, instead, an authoritarian, religious, gilded leadership system increasingly gets a foothold,” said President Joachim Gauck to

Der Spiegel

magazine.

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In a nod to the post-coup crack-down on opposition politicians, judges and journalists, Mr Gauck said the “unacceptable” imprisonment of Yücel raised questions about “whether Turkey still has a claim on being a democracy and a state with the rule of law”.

While Turkish justice minister Bekir Bozdag accused Germany of double standards, for blocking referendum rallies in Germany while attacking Turkey over the rule of law, his German justice colleague Heiko Maas hit back saying it was the state’s obligation “to protect journalists and not constrain them with reprisals”.

EU accession

And in a clear warning to Turkey’s EU accession hopes, already floundering in recent months, Mr Maas added: “If Turkey doesn’t stick to European fundamental values, a rapprochement with Europe will become ever more difficult to the point of impossible”.

German politicians have lined up to condemn the appearance of Turkish politicians at rallies here to capture the 1.3 million-strong Turkish immigrant vote in April’s referendum

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Norbert Röttgen, head of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee, said it was “legitimate” to block others’ domestic political debates spilling over onto German soil.

“The president of Turkey is trying, systematically, to abolish the democratic rule of law in Turkey and replace it with authoritarianism,” he said. “In Germany it is not permissible to allow promotion of the abolition of democratic rule in another country.”

Tensions are likely to escalate over the weekend with two further referendum events planned in western Germany attended by Turkey’s economic minister Nihat Zeybekci.