Feleknas Uca, currently Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) MP for Diyarbakir, Turkey, formerly member of the European parliament (MEP) for Germany, strongly criticised the recent Merkel government in Germany both for its domestic policies, which led to an increase in poverty and violence against women, and for the support it gave to the Erdoğan administration in Turkey, which committed numerous human rights violations and crimes against humanity both at home and abroad.

Uca, a Kurdish politician and a citizen of Germany, said in an interview with Jin News that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had always been very collaborative in her relations with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s prime minister between 2002-2014 and president since 2014.

The last government in power in Germany was a coalition government led by Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU).

Indicating that the Merkel administration, including her successive coalition governments, was the longest serving administration in the history of the united Germany, Uca said that during the 16 years under that administration Germany saw an increase in poverty and violence against women as well as many human rights violations.

She also added that the Merkel administration always had good relations with the Erdoğan administration in Turkey:

“One of the leading political leaders who had very collaborative relations with Erdogan was Merkel herself. Merkel always visited Turkey during election campaigns, appearing together with Erdoğan before the public and giving strong messages of support for him. Her message was, ‘We stand by you. You can continue with the same policies.’ Whenever Merkel visited Turkey, there was an increase in attacks against and criminalisation of Kurds in Germany. Each time there was an important deal between Merkel and Erdoğan, the homes and associations of Kurds were again raided by German police.”

Uca said that the Merkel government was the greatest accomplice in the atrocities carried out in occupied Afrin in northern Syria:

“Turkey had the worst record of human rights abuses, but it still had very close relations with Germany. The Merkel government exported an enormous amount of weapons to Turkey throughout its term. Weapons coming from Europe, NATO, and particularly from Germany, were used by the Turkish army during the invasion of the Afrin region, and no European state criticised Turkey for that. And now, Afrin is under the control of Turkey’s proxies, who commit crimes against humanity. The whole of Europe, but Germany above all, holds responsibility for these atrocities.”