Ankara mayor slams German Green party leader for ‘treachery’ #ArmenianGenocide

August 19, 2017 By administrator

Mayor Melih Gokcek has accused German politician Cem Özdemir of being an “Armenian servant” and traitor. Özdemir, the son of Turkish immigrants, has been highly critical of the government in Ankara.

The diplomatic row between Turkey and Germany took an unexpected turn on Friday evening, when the bullish mayor of Ankara called out the leader of the German Green party, describing him as an “Armenian servant.”

“Sit tight! You Armenian servant,” Melih Gokcek (pictured above) wrote on both his English and Turkish Twitter accounts, above a picture of German politician Cem Özdemir, himself of Turkish heritage.

“Can/Cem in the race for treachery,” reads the picture of Özdemir accompanying the tweet. Özedemir has long been a critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, especially since last year’s failed coup attempt in Turkey and the president’s authoritarian crackdown in response to it.

Can is likely a reference to Can Dundar, a left-wing Turkish journalist who fled to Germany amid ongoing government repression of opposition voices in the media.

‘Artificial’ earthquakes, anti-Semitic tweets

Gokcek is an active social media user and has often used Twitter as a platform to excoriate his political opponents. He has also courted controversy for calling a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coasts of Greece and Turkey in June an “artificial” attack coordinated by “foreign powers.”

He had earlier said that a similar earthquake earlier in the year was artificially triggered in order to manipulate Turkey’s economy.

Gokcek, who has been mayor of Ankara since 1994, garnered significant criticism in 2014 when he supported an anti-Semitic statement by Turkish singer Yildiz Tilbe, who tweeted “God bless Hitler.”

The mayor’s remarks came on the heels of even stronger words from President Erdogan, who earlier on Friday told Turkish Germans not to vote for Chancellor Angela Merkel in federal elections in September.

Erdogan tells Turkish Germans to oust Merkel

Erdogan has been increasingly critical of Germany ever since Berlin blocked him from holding campaign rallies in the country ahead of a referendum vote that granted more power to the Turkish president. On Friday, he explicitly told Germany’s Turkish community not to vote for any of the major parties on September 24.

“I am calling on all my countrymen in Germany to not make the mistake of supporting them,” Erdogan said, speaking about Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and its coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD).

He also called Özedmir’s Green party “enemies of Turkey.”

Chancellor Merkel responded immediately, saying that her government would “not stand for any kind of interference” from foreign governments in German elections.

“German voters, including ones with a Turkish background, have a right to vote freely,” the chancellor said, accusing Erdogan of “meddling.”

On top of the war of words, relations between the two NATO allies have been tense over the number of arrests made in Turkey in the wake of the July 2016 failed coup. A number of German nationals, including Die Welt reporter Deniz Yucel, have been detained in Turkey on terrorism charges.

Germany: Greens size up coalition possibilities, choose election candidate

January 8, 2017 By administrator

Germany’s Greens are electing candidates for September’s parliamentary elections. With the previously unthinkable idea of a Red-Red-Green coalition gaining traction, the choice is being watched carefully.

Four politicians gave their final pitches at a party meeting in Berlin on Saturday, with party chairwoman Katrin Göring-Eckardt already assured a place on the party’s ticket.

She will be joined by one of the following: co-chair Cem Özdemir (R), a Swabian with Turkish roots; Anton Hofreiter (L), a biologist from Bavaria, the parliamentary party chief and the only representative of the left of the party; and the writer Robert Habeck, Environment Minister and Deputy Premier of Schleswig-Holstein.

The results of the party primaries will be announced on January 18, after the party’s 60,800 members have cast their votes.

SPD to jump horses?

As the junior partner since 2013 in the so-called Grand Coalition, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democrats (SPD) are now expected to choose their party chairman, Sigmar Gabriel, to run against Merkel in the election, senior party sources said. Gabriel also serves as German Vice Chancellor and is thus currently Merkel’s deputy.

Gabriel previously told “Der Spiegel” magazine that his party would consider forming a three-way coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). A former major player in German politics, the FDP surprisingly failed to gain a single seat in the Bundestag in the 2013 elections for the first time in its seven-decade history. The classical liberal stalwarts may, however, be poised for a comeback in 2017.

The option would be an alternative to an SPD coalition with the Greens and the Left party – the so-called Red-Red-Green coalition – an option favored by the SPD’s left wing.

While not ruling out a coalition with the Left Party – a part of which is made up of the reformed successor to former East Germany’s Marxist-Leninist SED party – Gabriel questioned whether such a formation would result in a stable government.

“They have to decide whether they want to govern or remain firmly in opposition,” he said.

Combined, the Red-Red-Green parties have 320 seats in the Bundestag, compared with 311 for Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc.

A poll by Infratest Dimap and German broadcaster ARD showed the SPD currently standing with 20 percent of the vote, compared to 37 percent for Merkel’s conservative bloc. The Greens and the Left are both hovering at around ten percent.

Changing electoral configurations

In December, the SPD won control of Berlin’s city government at the head of a three-way coalition that involves the Left and the Green party. The rise of the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) could push the parties to put their differences aside in order to combat its appeal.

The Berlin government is the second Red-Red-Green coalition to have ruled one of Germany’s 16 regions. The first – in Thuringia in 2014 – is led by the Left rather than the SPD and is seen as such as less of a national precedent than the coalition in Berlin.

With the AfD expected to enter parliament for the first time in 2017 and the FDP likely to return, there could be seven parties in parliament instead of the current five, making a Red-Red-Green majority less likely.

The Greens also pose problems for the SPD with promises to phase out fossil fuels – a bone of contention with the SPD, which has support in coal-mining regions.

Green party head warns about ‘Turkish PEGIDA’ in Germany

July 24, 2016 By administrator

green-party Green party co-head Cem Özdemir has cautioned against radical Turkish nationalists in Germany. Özdemir has also suggested possible sanctions and said the government must send a signal to curb “Erdogan’s long arm.”

In the aftermath of a failed military coup in Turkey, Germany’s Green party co-leader said German politicians need to treat radical Turkish nationalist groups with the same caution as radical right-wing groups in Germany interview on Sunday.

“There is, unfortunately, a form of Turkish PEGIDA in Germany that we must treat the same way as the group we already know of,” Cem Özdemir told the German newspaper “Bild am Sonntag.”

Özdemir told the newspaper that, in Germany, there was a consensus that German right-wing populists existed “on the margins of society and are not normal interlocutors.”

“But for radical Turks, these standards to not apply,” he added. Anti-immigration movement PEGIDA, has drawn attention for its rallies and xenophobic rhetoric which criticizes Germany’s asylum and refugee policy.

If PEGIDA leader Lutz Bachmann were invited to an event, no “self-respecting democrat” would attend, said the Green party chief.

He urged that this kind of political attitude must now be applied to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government representatives who are based in Germany.

In the interview with “Bild am Sonntag,” Özdemir especially criticized the Turkish mosque organization DITIB – one of the largest Islamic organizations in Germany.

He said the organization should break away from the influence of Turkey in order to not become “the extended arm” of Erdogan’s AKP party.

“If we open Muslim religious schools through the DITIB, then we allow Erdogan’s ideology to be spread through our classrooms,” warned Özdemir. “I find that intolerable.”

The European Union should consider sanctions which directly affect those in power in Turkey, “if democracy, rule of law and human rights continue to be suspended,” urged Özdemir, suggesting bank account and asset freezes.

The EU has expressed concern over the imposition of a state of emergency in the wake of an attempted military coup, though the criticism has not been well received by Erdogan. Parts of the European Convention on Human Rights have also been suspended in the country.

rs/rc (AFP, dpa)