The planned visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Berlin at the invitation of the German government remains controversial. The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) appealed to all members of the German Parliament (Bundestag) to force Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to pass a resolution to disinvite the Turkish head of state. STP stated that the visit planned for 18 November would be a fatal signal to all enemies of freedom and human rights and would damage Germany’s reputation.

“These days Erdoğan is making himself the mouthpiece of hatred towards Israel and the Jews. The president of the state with the second largest army in NATO has declared the radical Islamist Hamas a ‘liberation group’. At the same time, he is bombing Turkey’s neighbouring states on a daily basis in order to expel the minorities living there and to Islamize the region,” emphasised Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East expert, in Göttingen. He underlined that the Bundestag should make sure that the Federal Chancellor does not ennoble these activities by inviting him to the Chancellery.

“Together with the Emir of Qatar, Erdoğan is one of the most important supporters of radical Sunni Islamism, which also includes the so-called “Islamic State” (IS). Under the banner of NATO, Erdoğan’s army is attacking the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD), effectively the “ground troops of the anti-IS coalition”, said Sido. “For years, he has occupied large parts of a neighbouring country in violation of international law. His army and its allied mercenaries are responsible for countless serious human rights violations there. This Turkish president can therefore rightly be labelled a war criminal. The Federal Chancellor should not receive him.”

The German Bundestag and the German government should make any further rapprochement with Turkey dependent on the country’s position on human rights, the rule of law and international law, Sido continued. “The long list of critical issues ranges from freedom of the press and freedom of opinion within Turkey to the discrimination of minorities at home and the expulsion of minorities abroad to close cooperation with Russia and Iran.”