“About Turkey’s attacks on Iraq and Kurdistan, I strongly condemn that,” Cem Ozdemir, German Minister of Food and Agriculture told Rudaw’s Alla Shally. “Turkey needs to try and strengthen its ties with neighboring countries rather than use those attacks to distract its people from its internal issues.”
Ozdemir went on to compare Turkey to Russia with regards to using attacks to divert the local population’s grievances.
“This is the same game Russia plays, whenever they have internal issues, fear losing elections, or are afraid of talks of corruption and inflation, hunger and bad economic situation, they immediately try to attack neighboring countries, but that does not solve the problems,” he said.
Ankara has been receiving a lot of pressure from Berlin.
Turkey sentenced leading philanthropist and intellectual Osman Kavala to life in jail last month for his alleged involvement in a coup plot. Germany summoned the Turkish envoy in Berlin on Friday over the case and called on other European Union countries to take a similar diplomatic approach.
Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency at the time cited diplomatic sources as saying that German Ambassador to Ankara, Jurgen Schulz, was summoned by the Turkish foreign ministry late Friday. Schulz was told that his country’s condemnation of the controversial case was an attempt to politicize Kavala’s case and interfere in the decision of “independent” Turkish courts.
Ozdemir reiterated Germany’s condemnation of Kavala’s sentence, saying that even the European parliament did not remain silent on the case.
Kavala was arrested in November 2017 on charges of overthrowing the constitutional order of Turkey and espionage. He was accused of financing a 2013 protest in Istanbul and was acquitted, but was re-arrested and charged with taking part in the 2016 attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to release Kavala, with the Council of Europe warning Ankara to comply with the ruling or it would launch disciplinary proceedings.
