A report by Germany’s public television ARD on Tuesday claimed that the German government had described Turkey as a center for “Islamist” movements across Middle East, in its reply to a parliamentary question submitted by the opposition Left Party on July 14.
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“The many expressions of solidarity and support actions by the ruling AKP and President Erdogan for the Egyptian MB (Muslim Brotherhood), Hamas and groups of armed Islamist opposition in Syria emphasize their ideological affinity with the (broader) Muslim Brotherhood”, ARD cited the government report as saying.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that the allegations were further “evidence of the biased attitude that, for some time now, attempts to demoralise our country while taking aim at our president and government”.
Relations between Germany and Turkey have been fraught, with ties frayed over the German parliament’s decision to brand as genocide the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces and also Ankara’s threat to back out of a crucial March deal with the European Union on migrants.
Ankara also spoke appealingly to Tehran in the wake of the failed mid-July coup, with the result that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Turkey on August 12 where the sides exchanged friendly remarks.
Earlier in the day, Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth said the report was signed by a deputy minister and that neither de Maizière nor the Foreign Ministry had been involved.
Turkey also demands that Germany extradite supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a US -based cleric Ankara accused of masterminding the failed coup.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert emphasised that Berlin also saw the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
“It is obvious that [the] PKK terror organization, which continues to target Turkey, and some political environments in Germany, which were known for their double-standard manners in the fight against terror are behind these claims”, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clapping during the 2015 Turkish Academy of Sciences award ceremony at Presidential Complex in Ankara, Turkey, Dec. 14, 2015.
Even members of Merkel’s Christian Democrats raised concerns about the report, which the interior ministry said it had not cleared with the foreign ministry due to a “office mistake”.
“As a country which sincerely fights against terror of every sort whatever its source, Turkey expects that its other partners and allies act in the same way”, the statement added.
The German government said that it would not comment on content that is classified.
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Hamas is considered a “terrorist organisation” by the European Union, which kept the Palestinian group on its blacklist earlier this year despite a controversial court decision ordering Brussels to remove the designation.
