Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faced criticism over press freedom and human rights violations in Turkey as he met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday, according to a report by Deutsche Welle (DW).
German Chancellor Merkel said she brought up human rights with the visiting Turkish President Erdoğan, but first, he received full military honors from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday morning.
“I consider the visit very important because when there are differences a personal meeting is vital to resolve them,” Merkel said at a delayed and keenly awaited joint press conference, which Erdoğan reportedly threatened to call off over the potential presence of exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar, who Turkey wants to be extradited.
Merkel was under pressure to bring up human rights with Erdoğan on a state visit that has aroused huge controversy, amid concerns that President Erdoğan is moving Turkey towards authoritarianism, and she brought up German citizens imprisoned in Turkey in her opening remarks. “I have called for these cases to be resolved as quickly as possible,” she said.
According to the DW’s report, Erdoğan for his part glossed over the criticism, insisting that the fundamental point was respect for the Turkish judiciary.
Chancellor Merkel also emphasized the importance of maintaining a good relationship with Turkey, and in particular Germany’s interests in “an economically stable Turkey.”
Ties with Germany have deteriorated following a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, in Turkey to which Ankara has reacted with draconian measures, including jailing journalists, soldiers, and public servants, among them several German citizens.
A Turkish government-friendly newspaper, Yeni Asır, reported on Friday that Turkey had already requested the extradition of the journalist Can Dündar in the run-up to Erdoğan’s visit, along with a “terror list” with 69 names of people wanted by Ankara.
“It will only enhance the peace and security in both countries to do so,” claimed Erdoğan during the press conference.
Dündar, former editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, who has been living in exile in Germany for more than two years, had been condemned to prison in Turkey for an article on weapons supplied to Syria by Turkish intelligence.
According to German media, he is wanted for spying, betrayal of state secrets and propaganda. A controversy erupted ahead of Friday’s press conference, as reports emerged that the German government press office had accredited Dündar – though without giving him the right to ask a question. In the end, Dündar said that he would not be taking part in the press conference after Erdoğan threatened to call it off over his presence.
“The fact that Mr. Dündar is not taking part in this conference is a decision he made himself,” Merkel underlined at the press conference.
Erdoğan described Dündar as an “agent who revealed state secrets to the public,” who had been sentenced to more than five years in prison. “There is no state or country where it is possible to commit this crime, and it is a crime,” he said.
Elsewhere, the German TAZ newspaper reported that the Turkish embassy has been allowed to decide which Turkish journalists would be accredited. The reporter Aziz Koçyiğit, of the left-wing paper Evrensel, told TAZ that the German Federal Press Office had referred her to the embassy.
The press office said was in line with “internationally practised standards,” though the head of German foreign journalists’ association Pascal Thibaut said he had never heard of embassies deciding which journalists would be allowed to attend press conferences.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 236 journalists and media workers were in jail as of Sept. 13, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 168 were under arrest pending trial while only 68 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 147 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
Also on Friday, Germany’s minister of state for Europe at the Foreign Ministry, Michael Roth, called on Erdoğan to halt the current political trend toward authoritarianism in Turkey. “Our expectations are clear: the release of the German people who have been arrested for political reasons, and at last some movement toward democracy and the rule of law,” he said.
Both Merkel and Roth rejected the idea of Germany providing financial help to the struggling Turkish economy, with Roth stating that many German companies would invest in Turkey again if the country returned to democratic and constitutional principles.
Erdoğan’s visit, which began on Thursday and ends on Saturday after the opening of a central mosque in Cologne, has triggered numerous protests by people demonstrating against the arrest of journalists and government critics in Turkey in the wake of the failed coup.
Organizers of one large protest at Berlin’s Potsdam Square, which is to take part on Friday afternoon under the motto “Erdoğan not welcome,” expect some 10,000 participants.
German President Steinmeier, who will also host Erdogan at a state dinner on Friday evening, said ahead of Erdoğan’s visit that it did not express any normalization of German-Turkish relations, but “could be a start.”
Steinmeier said Turkey needs to take concrete steps with regard to the principles of a state of law, adding that pressure on the media, judiciary and labor unions is unacceptable. The German president said only after improvements in these fields could Turkey hope to have close relations with the European Union.
Erdoğan himself has said that his visit aims to improve ties with his “German friends.”
There has been tension between the two countries over the past year, especially in light of increased powers acquired by President Erdoğan following a controversial referendum in 2017.
The Turkish government has jailed more than 50,000 people, dismissed 150,000 others from state jobs, closed down critical media outlets and arrested dozens of critical journalists in the aftermath of coup bid on July 15, 2016, under the pretext of the anti-coup fight.
The post Germany Chancellor Merkel talks human rights with Turkey’s Erdoğan appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/germany-chancellor-merkel-talks-human-rights-with-turkeys-erdogan/
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