Category: Europe

German Chancellor Angela Merkel backs opening a new chapter to continue talks on whether Turkey should join the European Union. (Reuters)

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she backs opening a new chapter in stalled talks on Turkey’s membership of the European Union.

Despite being skeptical about Turkey’s membership herself, Merkel says she is willing to continue negotiations with Ankara without prejudice as to the outcome.

The leader of Europe’s biggest economy spoke in pre-recorded video broadcast Saturday ahead of her trip to Turkey Sunday and Monday.

Merkel is scheduled to visit German troops operating NATO missile batteries in Kahramanmaras near the Syrian border on Sunday.

On Monday, she is due to confer with members of the Turkish government in Ankara.

via Germany backs opening ‘new chapter’ in EU-Turkey talks: Merkel.

Turkish, Kurdish and radical religious terrorist groups are seen as a threat both in Germany and in Turkey. But cooperation between security and judiciary authorities is not as good as it could be.

German security services say there’s no disagreement between Germany and Turkey in how they see the danger posed by terrorist organizations to public safety. Speaking to Deutsche Welle under condition of anonymity, the sources said that both countries share very similar interests in fighting terrorism, and they stress that the two countries have relatively good relations in the area of security. But they add that there is room for improvement.

German security experts also call it “intolerable” that organizations with a domestic Turkish agenda conduct their fight against Turkey in Germany. What they describe as “foreign criminal and terrorist elements” are not wanted in Germany, they say.

On the other hand, there are clearly marked, serious differences between the German and Turkish judiciaries in the understanding of the rule of law, so that deportation or extradition can only occur rarely, despite Turkey’s formal requests.

Erdogan accuses Germany of negligence

Following the suicide bombing attack on the American embassy in Ankara on February 1, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, again accused Germany of being “negligent in the fight against terrorism.” In an attack on February 1 by the extremist left-wing group Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front (DHKP-C), the bomber killed one guard along with himself. It later emerged that the bomber had lived for many years in Germany, and had just returned to Turkey before the attack.

Erdogan has criticized German laxity over terrorism

Erdogan again criticized Germany over the killing of three women activists of the militant Kurdish organization PKK in Paris on January 10, pointing out that one of the women had been arrested in Germany in 2007 and had been released despite a Turkish extradition request. “This carelessness and indifference can no longer be accepted,” said Erdogan.

The German sources say that extradition requests usually fail on the ground that they lack clear evidence for the crimes which are said to have been committed in Turkey. The reason given for the requests is often inadequate.  The German authorities complain that they cannot simply deport or extradite people “to order.” Often it’s the courts that prevent deportation, since they regard the human rights situation in Turkey as inadequate.

‘The problem lies in Turkey’

Members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which is defined as “terrorist” in the EU as well as in Turkey, are careful not to carry out any violent acts in Europe. So are the 650 supporters of the much less well-known DHKP-C. Turkish security agencies often provide information that such organization are involved in drug dealing or other means of raising money to help the fight against Turkey, but the German authorities don’t find it convincing – either in content or form. So such information can not be followed up.

No-one yet knows who killed the PKK activists in Paris

The German security agencies are aware that there are “hawks” in the PKK, but the majority are “doves” who are more prepared to negotiate. They see the source of the problem in the socially and economically backward east and southeast of Turkey, where social problems led hopeless young men to join the PKK or other extremist organizations. That meant that any solution had to start there.

New term: ‘jihadist’ instead of ‘Islamist’

Religiously motivated radicals operate differently from those of the political groups. Their targets are not restricted to Turkey, but they have a transnational agenda. German security circles had begun to replace the term “Islamist” with the term “jihadist” when talking about these radicals, even though Islamic scholars disagree over whether jihad, or struggle in God’s name, really refers to armed struggle, or whether it refers to defense of the religion or stands for an expansionist approach.

The security sources said that, as they saw it, jihadists have no hesitation in carrying out attacks on German or European soil, which meant that the Muslim communities had to take on responsibility for the fight against terrorism. The legal Muslim organizations had an obligation to ban hate preachers from speaking in their mosques.

DW.DE

via Security cooperation with Turkey could be better | Europe | DW.DE | 22.02.2013.

Reuters

Feb 22, 2013 – 11:27

By Alexandra Hudson

BERLIN (Reuters) – Angela Merkel embarks on a tricky visit to Turkey on Sunday looking increasingly isolated in her personal opposition to its European Union entry bid and facing charges from Ankara that Germany is soft on Kurdish militants.

Her two-day visit occurs at a sensitive moment – a change of president in France is bringing new momentum to Turkey’s EU membership application, just as Ankara finds itself forced to re-engage more actively with the West as the conflict raging in Syria badly strains ties with its eastern neighbours.

Turkey has also launched fledgling peace talks with the jailed leader of the militant separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), aiming to end a 28-year-old conflict, and is incensed by continued fundraising and recruiting by PKK members abroad.

Merkel, chancellor since 2005, and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, in power for a decade, have uneasy relations.

She finds his autocratic, macho style grating and provocative, while for Erdogan the German leader’s support for a “privileged partnership” falling far short of full EU membership typifies Europe’s “double standards” towards Turkey.

“Despite some undeniable differences of opinion on some issues, there has always been a foundation on which to base talks, a desire to understand each other and to show respect,” a German government official said when asked about relations.

Turkey’s EU accession negotiations, launched in 2005, are stalled due to an intractable dispute over the divided island of Cyprus, an EU member, and opposition from Paris and Berlin.

But last week Socialist French President Francois Hollande said he was ready to unblock talks with Turkey on the chapter dealing with help for EU regions. His conservative predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, strongly opposed Turkey’s EU aspirations.

Turkey has completed only one of 35 policy ‘chapters’ every accession candidate must conclude to join. All but 13 are blocked and the European Commission says Ankara does not yet meet EU standards on human rights and freedom of speech.

“France changed its attitude towards Turkey,” said Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Gumrukcu. We expect Germany, an important EU member, to support Turkish accession talks.”

When Erdogan visited Berlin in October, Merkel told him the EU would be an “honest negotiating partner”.

Ruprecht Polenz, a member of her party and head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, suggested this week the chapter on human rights be opened.

“AFFECTION FOR TERRORISTS”

Far more pressing than EU accession is the PKK dossier. A government-approved trip by Kurdish delegates to see PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in prison on Saturday may result in his calling for a ceasefire in the long-running insurgency.

Two weeks ago Erdogan blasted the EU and Germany for their “affection for terrorists” and said Turkey’s requests for the extradition of 408 individuals, more than half of them in Germany, had been rejected with “lame excuses”.

A German government official said: “Fighting terrorism is a joint effort and we are working closer together on this.”

Another German official said: “Erdogan sometimes oversteps the mark in his comments, but when you discuss certain themes it is possible to work together concretely.”

It is not only Kurdish militants Turkey says Germany allows to roam free. Embarrassingly for Berlin, a leftist suicide bomber who hit the U.S. embassy in Ankara at the beginning of February, just days before a visit by German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, had spent years living in Germany.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service estimates there are 13,000 PKK members and active supporters in Germany, up from 11,500 in 2010. It also believes there are some 3,150 Turkish leftist militants from groups including the banned DHKP-C that was behind the U.S. embassy attack and 7,000 ultra-nationalists.

Around 3 million people in Germany, including 800,000 Kurds, have roots in Turkey. Some 1.7 million remain Turkish nationals.

The EU considers the PKK a terrorist group and Germany has prosecuted individuals for membership and financing.

“The roots of the Kurdish conflict or nationalism lie in Turkey. Turkey has to sort out these problems at home, before they start throwing accusations at us,” Friedrich told German newspaper Bild in a recent interview.

The PKK took up arms in 1984. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, destabilised Turkey and stunted development of the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Merkel’s trip begins with a visit to Germany’s Patriot missile batteries stationed with 320 troops in the eastern Turkish province of Kahramanmaras, 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border. Turkey asked its NATO partners for the missiles in order to deter any Syrian attack.

Erdogan and Merkel, accompanied by a large business contingent, will be on easier ground when they talk trade.

Turkey exported $13.9 billion (9.1 billion pounds) worth of goods to Germany in 2011, an increase of 21.6 percent, making it its largest export market. Imports of German goods stood at $23 billion.

Turkey exports mostly clothing and textiles to Germany, while it imports German cars, machinery and machine parts. Direct German investment in Turkey stands at $605 million.

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker in Ankara, Andreas Rinke in Berlin, editing by Gareth Jones and Alistair Lyon)

Reuters

via EU doubts, Kurdish rebels cloud Merkel visit to Turkey – swissinfo.