generalspeaking

Monday, October 01, 2018

Face-to-Face Reduction of Tension: Germany, Turkey

"I believe our meetings for two days have cemented a long-established Turkish-German friendship. [Turkey and Germany] need to focus on joint interests, leaving aside some recent differences of opinion."
"In a critical period, we have made a fruitful, successful visit to Germany. I stressed that we need to put aside our differences and focus on our common interests."
"They [Germans] ostracized or Mesut Ozil, our Ilkay, who were born and raised in Germany, just because we had a photo taken with them."
"As a president, I could not stomach the fact that he was alienated. We would have liked to see a joint stance against those who have fallen in this racist drift."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"Turkey is an important partner for us, and it is also an important partner for Europe."
"We have a fundamental interest ... in an economically and politically stable Turkey, and of course in a Turkey in which democracy is practiced."
Seffen Seiberg, Spokesman, Angela Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, talks to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, prior to their breakfast meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018. Erdogan is on a three-day official state visit to Germany. (Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)AP

With three million German citizens of Turkish origin living in Germany, Erdogan feels he is entitled to treat them all as his own citizens. They represent 'his' people, not Germany's. And he felt that his state ministers could visit Germany during the period leading up to the last election for some electioneering, which the German state refused to allow. Leading Erdogan to one of his fiery rages when he characterized Chancellor Merkel and her ilk as Nazis. A reference that the affable, diplomatic and seasoned Merkel might not have appreciated.

But Frau Merkel, being the seasoned politician that she is, overlooks the volatility of the Turkish president in the interests of among other things, of ensuring that Germany is not again engulfed by the unwanted migration of additional hordes of Sunni Syrians and others from the Middle East, desperate to escape the regions of deadly conflict that continually erupt with lightning force in the enclaves of the famed 'religion of peace' where sectarian, tribal and ethnic explosions of raging hatred turns the sacred-to-Islam territory drenched scarlet.

Erdogan was interested, among other items of pressing importance to himself, to persuade the German chancellor that she really should do something about the presence of 'terrorists' in her country. Referring, needless to say, to the Kurds that have taken shelter in Germany from the deadly wrath of Erdogan's sectarian allies whom the West knows as terrorists and Erdogan supports, gives shelter to and provides with funding and arms. German Kurds, in fact, seized the opportunity to mingle with ordinary Germans to protest the visit to Berlin and Cologne of the fascist Erdogan.

Chancellor Merkel and her cabinet can talk as much as they wish about 'preserving democracy' in Turkey, but under Recep Tayyip Erdogan democracy, even Turkish-style, is slowly eroding, expiring into a genuine autocracy. When Erdogan is asked why so many journalists are being incarcerated in Turkey he responds that they are 'terrorists'. So too the tens of thousands of educators, civil servants, lawyers, police, unionists and military that have been imprisoned also as Gulenist terrorists. So much for democracy.

As for racism, Erdogan knows all about it, only he considers himself to be discerning and just when he spins off into one of his head-turning rants about Israel and the Palestinians, the genocide that the Jewish state practices against the totally innocent Palestinians and Hamas whom he supports unreservedly as a great government for Palestinians fortunate enough to live in Gaza. Erdogan's wretched anti-Semitism is legendary, but his avarice is as well, so that economic and trade relations with Israel remain intact since Turkey is nothing less than desperate in its financial despair.

In Germany, the Turkish president called upon his German counterpart to pay heed to the "hundreds, thousands", of terrorists Germany permits to live there, members he points out, of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. He also urged upon German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier the reinstatement of dual citizenship; where Germany requires those of Turkish origin to consider themselves German, Erdogan would much prefer them to think of themselves as Turks, living in Germany.

The purported purpose of Erdogan's visit to Germany -- to reduce tensions between the two members of NATO. Pity that Chancellor Merkel couldn't candidly give her opinion of the success of the meeting of minds.