EuropeAnalysis

Erdogan can expect cold welcome on his arrival in Berlin for three-day state visit

The Turkish leader has plunged Turkish-German bilateral relations into new crisis over recent remarks on the Middle East crisis

German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They will meet in Berlin on Friday. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/Getty Images

Derek Scally's face
Derek Scally
Thu Nov 16 2023 - 21:00

Germans like to say that even friction generates warmth, an observation that will be tested in practice on Friday when Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Berlin for a three-day state visit.

Mr Erdogan will be a welcome sight for 1.5 million people living in Germany who are Turkish citizens or of Turkish descent – or at least the two-thirds of them who backed him in May’s presidential election. Beyond his loyal supporters, however, the 4C temperature forecast for his arrival will reflect the chilly welcome Mr Erdogan can expect elsewhere.

After years of simmering tensions the 69-year-old has plunged Turkish-German bilateral relations into a new crisis over recent remarks on the latest Middle East crisis. He described Hamas, responsible for the killing of 1,200 Israelis and considered a terrorist organisation by Germany and other western allies, as a “liberation organisation”. Israel, on the other hand, had spent 75 years trying to “establish a state on land that was stolen from the Palestinian people”, argued Erdogan.

After recalling Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, Erdogan said the state’s legitimacy was under question thanks to what he called Israel’s “own fascism”.

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Responding to the remarks on Tuesday, chancellor Olaf Scholz described the remarks as “absurd” and stressed that Israel was a democracy “bound to human rights and international law, and which acts accordingly”.

A day later Erdogan stepped up his rhetoric, describing Israel on Wednesday as a “terror state” carrying out a “genocidal strategy” against Gaza City and its inhabitants.

That is the state of play when Erdogan pays a courtesy call on German president Frank Walter Steinmeier and heads to the chancellery for dinner with Scholz. Even after Scholz repeats his core message – that Israel has not only the right but a “duty” to defend itself – the two are unlikely to run out of differing opinions over dinner.

Despite the friction talks in Berlin will look at the increasingly complex interdependencies between Turkey and the EU – and Germany in particular. Turkey is anxious to maintain – and expand – business ties with the EU to support its struggling economy. Meanwhile Berlin hopes that Ankara will renew a deal to throttle the flow of refugees heading towards western Europe. Seven years on from its first such deal, Turkey has received several billion euro from the EU to take back migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected in neighbouring Greece.

German analysts also see Turkey as an important mediator in the Ukraine-Russia war, given Erdogan’s ties to Moscow.

Meanwhile, Scholz is likely to block a request by Erdogan to update its air force with Eurofighter Typhoon jets, which Germany produces in a consortium with three other countries.

At least 1,500 police will be working overtime, and street clashes are likely in Berlin, with demonstrations of Palestinians, leftist groups and supporters of the banned Kurdish PKK.

Despite a Turkey-Germany soccer international on Saturday evening, Germany’s DFB football organisation said on Thursday it was not expecting any VIP visitors to the match.

While most government and opposition leaders have criticised Erdogan’s remarks – Scholz’s own Social Democratic Party called him a “challenging personality” – most back the decision to go ahead with the visit.

Jewish community representatives have criticised the Turkish leader’s “propaganda” for “fuelling protests on German streets and the psychological terror against Jews in Germany”. The opposition Left Party accused Berlin of “rolling out the red carpet” for Erdogan while 65 German citizens are sitting in Turkish prisons and forbidden to leave the country, including 16 new cases this year.

Exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar accused Berlin of kowtowing to the Turkish president, who he said was “the winner of this game even before the visit happens”.

On previous visits to Germany Erdogan has made headlines by attacking Kurdish activists and, in 2010, telling an audience of 15,000 people in Cologne that Turkish immigrants should integrate and learn German, but that “nobody can expect you to assimilate”.

Before this latest visit to Germany Erdogan expressed a wish to “leave behind us completely” the tension of the last years with Germany and establish a “warm atmosphere” with Berlin.

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