German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been criticized for pouring tea for his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. And for saying there was nothing wrong with reinforcing Turkish tanks, despite human rights abuses.

Virtually all of Germany’s political parties came together on Monday to condemn Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel for his impromptu meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in the central German town of Goslar at the weekend.

Cem Özdemir, departing leader of the Green party, didn’t like the imagery: particularly a widely-shared picture of Gabriel, a member of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), pouring Cavusoglu a cup of tea. “If I’d have been representing Germany, I certainly wouldn’t have served the Turkish foreign minister with a Turkish tea service and allowed myself to be photographed doing it,” he told public broadcaster ARD on Monday morning.

This image would be understood in Turkey as a sign that “Germany was serving Turkey and the Turkish foreign minister,” added Özdemir, who might himself have angled for Gabriel’s job had the Green party’s coalition negotiations with Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) gone differently last year.

Other sections of Germany’s political spectrum made similar complaints. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) — Germany’s free-market purists — also criticized the unofficial meeting as “inappropriate” while “Germans were being kept as prisoners without charge in Turkish jails,” as FDP parliamentary leader Alexander Graf Lambsdorff put it. German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel has been kept without charge in a Turkish prison for nearly a year.

“To re-start German-Turkish relations we need clarity,” he told the WAZ newspaper. “That’s only possible if the German hostages like Deniz Yücel are released immediately. Only after that can trade, defense cooperation and other issues go back on the agenda — and not before.”

No changes in Turkey

Turkey is keen to buy German equipment to reinforce its tanks against mines laid by the “Islamic State” militia in northern Syria, and in Goslar on Saturday Gabriel appeared to suggest that “when it comes to this concrete case,” Turkey’s arguments “make sense to me.”

This drew criticism from other German politicians, not least because it had been Gabriel who, in the thick of the SPD’s election campaign last summer, had said that Germany needed to take a tougher course against Ankara. As many politicians pointed out this weekend, Turkey’s political climate has hardly become more liberal since then. “There is nothing new substantially, no change and no solution to problems, because nothing has changed about the causes of the problem,” as the CDU’s Norbert Röttgen said.

In response, Gabriel was quick to qualify his statements on Sunday. He insisted that he had used the meeting with Cavusoglu to urge Yücel’s release. and said that the government would not change its line on another joint project between German and Turkish arms companies — the building of a tank factory, which German weapons maker Rheinmetall was keen to be part of, despite much protest.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has suggested that he and his Greek counterpart, Antonis Samaras, should meet for a spot of tea on both sides of Cyprus to find a solution to the divided island’s longstanding problems.

“If Mr. Greek Prime Minister [Samaras] is ready, we can first go to the southern [Greek] side of the island, drink tea together and have a chat. Then we can go to the northern side and again spend time together,” he said during his official visit to Turkish Cyprus after being elected, as visiting Cyprus as a first foreign destination is a tradition for presidents and Turkish prime ministers.

“The Mediterranean Sea has been the common sea for many civilizations,” Davutoğlu said in a joint press meeting with Turkish Cypriot President Derviş Eroğlu, calling on Samaras to jointly build peace there.

Turkey wanted to sit together with northern Cyprus, southern Cyprus and Greece to discuss how to develop peace in the region but this was not well-received, he said.

The latest talks started on Feb. 11 with a joint declaration by Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, as hydrocarbon discoveries seem like a game-changer that could bring the parties closer to a solution. Still, security, property rights, and power-sharing are still on the table.

Davutoğlu also urged Greek Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiadis to take action for peace as fast as possible. “I am calling on Mr. Anastasiadis,” he said. “Let’s make peace right now, not tomorrow but today, not next week but this week, not next year but this year. All delayed solutions are deepening the deadlock.”

Turkish Cyprus has reached democratic maturity in its 40-year struggle and 30-year experience as a state, Davutoğlu said.

An ongoing fresh water project is one indicator of Turkey’s support for northern Cyprus, he also said.
The Turkish Cypriot leader was scheduled to meet Anastasiadis for the first time since July 7. Davutoğlu noted that “his precious friend,” former Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, would accompany them as a United Nations representative. “Thus, there lies an opportunity to make a nice start,” he said.

Eide, the new United Nations envoy for Cyprus, said earlier this month that he would unveil new ideas on nudging forward faltering talks aimed at reunifying the ethnically divided island.

Barth said talks had not gone as expected when the island’s rival leaders agreed on a joint declaration in February that inaugurated a fresh round of negotiations.

He said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wanted to see talks make headway so that the decades-old dispute could finally be resolved.

Before Davutoğlu, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also visited the island after being elected on Aug. 10, pledging solidarity.

September/16/2014

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