The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"An unbelievable escalation in foreign policy"

2021-10-24T13:48:41.166Z


The Turkish head of state Erdoğan has declared the German and other ambassadors to be "undesirable persons". Politicians from the CDU, Greens and FDP react with sharp criticism - the AfD prefers to criticize the Foreign Office.


Enlarge image

Norbert Röttgen: "The ambassadors' protest is justified and necessary."

Photo: Pool / Getty Images

In the dispute over the imprisoned Turkish human rights activist Osman Kavala, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the ambassadors of Germany, the USA and eight other countries to be "undesirable persons". "I gave our Foreign Minister the necessary instructions and told them what to do," Erdoğan said on Saturday in a speech in the Anatolian provincial capital Eskisehir. "These ten ambassadors must be declared undesirable persons immediately."

The Foreign Office reacted cautiously. "We have taken note of the statements made by Turkish President Erdoğan and the reports on it and are currently in intensive consultation with the nine other affected countries," said a spokesman at the weekend. The background to this is that the Turkish government has not yet implemented the step announced by Erdoğan against the German ambassador Jürgen Schulz. The governments of Denmark and Norway also stated that they had not received any official notification from Turkey.

German politicians reacted with criticism.

"The announced expulsion is an unbelievable escalation in foreign policy," tweeted Norbert Röttgen from the CDU.

“The ambassadors' protest against the imprisonment of a person without trial is justified and necessary.” Green politician Cem Özdemir wrote on Twitter: “This threat is above all a sign of domestic political weakness.

The old, bad game: When things go badly economically, you attack abroad. "

The FDP European politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff also criticized: The possible expulsion of ten ambassadors "would be unwise, undiplomatic and would weaken the cohesion of the alliance.

Erdoğan cannot be interested in that, ”he tweeted.

The AfD accused the Foreign Office of “political activism instead of diplomacy”.

"President Erdoğan is pulling the cord because of interference in his country's internal affairs," said the chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Foreign Affairs Committee, Petr Bystron, on Sunday.

"With the expulsion of the German ambassador, the relationship between Ankara and Berlin has reached a new low."

Under the leadership of Heiko Maas (SPD), according to Bystron, a German diplomat was expelled from his host country every year for interfering in internal affairs.

“With such interference, Berlin and Brussels only achieve a further deterioration in relations with Turkey.

That is not in the interests of our country. "

Kavala faces life imprisonment

At the beginning of the week, the ambassadors called for the release of Kavala in a joint appeal, which aroused the anger of the Turkish government.

They called for a "fair and speedy settlement" of the case.

Turkey then summoned the ambassadors and threatened to expel them.

Human rights activist and patron of culture Osman Kavala has been imprisoned in Turkey for four years without having been convicted.

He was originally arrested on charges of funding and organizing the Gezi protests that were critical of the government in 2013.

A court acquitted him of this charge last year.

As a result, Kavala was released from prison after two and a half years in prison.

However, he was arrested again a few hours later.

This time in connection with the attempted coup against Erdoğan in 2016 and allegations of espionage.

In January of this year, an appeals court overturned the first acquittal.

If convicted of espionage charges, Kavala faces life imprisonment.

Kavala's next trial is scheduled for November 26th.

skr / dpa / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-10-24

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z
News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.