İlnur Çevik penned a column for Daily Sabah on political tensions between Ankara and Berlin. Çevik slammed Germany's extremely negative attitude against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He also reacted Merkel's remarks on interfering Turkey's internal politics.
Merkel says Germany will continue its extremely negative attitude against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and will side with his political adversaries. If this is not interference in Turkey's internal politics, what is?, Çevik brought to light hypocrisy of Germany by writting that statement in his article.
You can read full text of article written by Çevik below:
Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on the record, "Turkey is not just Erdoğan" and that about 50 percent of the country voted against the constitutional changes in the April 16 referendum, thus her administration has to stand by these people and satisfy their expectations.
She simply says Germany will continue its extremely negative attitude against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and will side with his political adversaries. If this is not interference in Turkey's internal politics, what is?
The German government has clearly sided with those in Turkey who wanted the constitutional amendments rejected in the referendum and did everything to support them both in Germany and in Turkey. They used the state-owned German TV to promote the "no" campaign in the referendum. If this is not interference in Turkey's internal politics, what is?
The German authorities effectively banned Turkish politicians from conducting the "yes" campaign to influence the 1.25 million Turkish voters in Germany while they enthusiastically allowed the "no" campaign, despite 67 percent of the Turkish voters in Germany voting "yes" for the constitutional amendments that ushered Turkey into a presidential system. If this attitude does not amount to interference in Turkey's domestic politics, what does?
It is also no secret that the German authorities have given sanctuary to Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) members who staged a failed bloody coup on July 15, 2016. Many leading wanted coup plotters are currently in Germany and the Berlin administration is eager to give them asylum. This of course raised eyebrows in Turkey where many people feel the German authorities actually backed the coup attempt. Isn't this a form of interference in Turkish politics?
Then when President Erdoğan called upon the Turks living in Germany to not vote for political parties that display enmity toward Turkey, German politicians were all up in arms, saying they will not let the Turkish leader interfere in their domestic politics. Isn't all this rather hypocritical?
When you have more than 3 million Turkish citizens living in your country it is only normal that they will look up to charismatic leaders like Erdoğan and he will guide them when the German politicians display enmity toward him.
The Germans have a very bad record regarding Erdoğan.
German authorities say they regard the PKK as a terrorist organization yet they allow the PKK to stage anti-Erdoğan rallies and they do not prosecute the PKK militants active in their country.
Besides this, German authorities allow PKK leaders to address crowds via satellite from their terrorist hideouts in northern Iraq and yet when Erdoğan wants to address Turks in rallies he is denied this.
Then of course there is the incident where a German group offered a car to anyone who assassinated Erdoğan, Russian President Putin and Saudi King Salman bin Adbul-Aziz Saud Salman. They did this just in front of the office of the German chancellor.
So, no one expects sympathy or even understanding from the German leaders. Yet they do have to obey international rules and stop trying to topple the elected government in Turkey.
