ANKARA: Germany’s leading politicians were accused on Monday of exploiting growing tensions with Ankara for their own ends to bolster their vote in this month’s German general election.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union and her main rival Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic Party have vied with each other to see who can talk toughest on Turkey.
Schulz, an advocate of Turkish membership of the EU when he was president of the European Parliament, has now called for the immediate cancellation of membership talks with Ankara and freezing pre-accession funds that amount to about €4 billion ($4.68bn).
Merkel said she would discuss with other EU leaders whether it was possible to halt membership talks. “I don’t see Turkey ever joining and I never believed it would happen,” she said.
The Chancellor, who is ahead in the opinion polls before voting on Sept. 24, also hinted at economic sanctions. Germany is Turkey’s leading trade partner and largest export market, and also hosts the largest Turkish diaspora.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Monday that German mainstream politics had “bowed to populism” in a way that was likely to trigger racism and discrimination.
Attacking Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “while ignoring the fundamental and urgent problems of Germany and Europe is a reflection of a narrowing vision in Europe,” he said.
Kalin accused Germany of “openly embracing” outlawed groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gulen organization. “Is Germany … aware that it is defending terrorists and coup plotters instead of defending democracy?” he said.
“We hope that this challenging atmosphere which has made Turkey-Germany relations the victim of a narrow political vision will change as soon as possible.”
Ankara restricted access for German politicians to visit German troops at the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, and has detained several German nationals. It accuses Berlin of harboring members of the Gulen network and the PKK, and denying extradition requests from Turkey.
Ozgehan Senyuva, head of European studies at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, said German politicians seemed to be using the divergence between Turkey and the EU for their own domestic political gains.
“I don’t consider these recent events as a break-up or turning point, but rather the continuation of the already existing rupture in Turkey-Germany and Turkey-EU relations,” he told Arab News.
Senyuva expects that the crisis will continue until the elections in Germany, as Turkey and its president are popular topics among German public. “Germany seems to opt for some sort of a neo-orientalism approach where Turkey is considered as one whole entity, ignoring the different voices and positions within.”
The key to the debate was who would make an effort to normalize relations, Senyuva said. “So far, the Turkish community in Germany, the most natural candidate, seems far from playing an intermediary role. They are being treated as subjects rather than actors in Turkish-German relations.”
Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that Turkey had a rich identity and future that could not be seen by short-sighted politicians, and that Ankara determined its own direction. “Such a populist approach will encourage xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia that are already expanding in Europe,” it said.
Gul Gunver Turan, president of the Turkey-EU Association in Istanbul, said that if German calls for a halt to Turkish EU membership talks were taken seriously by other EU members, it could antagonize those countries opposed to Germay’s domination of the EU, such as France.
“Turkish authorities deep down do not believe that they can conduct valid foreign policies without Europe. Turkey’s presidential spokesman Kalin’s statement urging that Turkish-German relations should not fall victim to this narrow political horizon is proof of that,” Turan told Arab News.
“Diplomacy is not an amateur's game,” she said, and she does not expect that Turkey’s membership talks with the EU will end, whatever the outcome of the general election in Germany.