Erdogan angry at Germany for allowing pro-Kurdish party rally
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also released a statement condemning an HDP rally in Cologne, charging German authorities with having a "two-faced approach."
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday criticized Germany for allowing the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to hold a rally despite an earlier ban on foreign parties’ election campaigns there.
“European administrations which allow HDP to hold rallies block AKP,” Erdogan told his supporters during a rally for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) organized in the city of Erzurum one month ahead of snap presidential and general elections.
He charged the HDP of being “a vanguard” of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and US-armed Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that spearheads the war on the Islamic State (IS) south of the Turkish border.
Erdogan called both YPG and PKK “terrorist.”
HDP, under an 18-months-long state crackdown, hopes to emerge stronger in the June 24 elections and along with Turkish opposition parties end Erdogan’s rule in both the Parliament and the office of president.
German Press Agency had earlier announced that authorities in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Cologne granted permission to HDP for a rally.
The agency stated that the German police, in line with the law, barred two Kurdish politicians from Turkey from addressing an audience.
Last week, Erdogan gave his campaign appearance in Bosnia and Herzegovina as an example of his defiance of other European countries’ bans on AKP’s electoral propaganda.
Shortly after Erdogan’s speech, the Foreign Ministry issued a strong-worded statement, accusing Germany of double standards.
“There is nothing that can be explained and accepted about this activity. It constitutes the latest example of double standards that this rally, with terrorist group PKK’s symbols, has been allowed. This two-faced approach, which we condemn strongly, can neither be reconciled with democracy, the fight against terrorism and nor expectations of normalization in Turkish-German relations,” the ministry’s release read.
Berlin-Ankara ties have worsened in the past several years over fiery rhetoric by Erdogan against Angela Merkel’s government for contentious issues between the two NATO members and large trade partners.
He has repeatedly accused the Merkel administration of collaborating with “terrorists” for Germany’s refusal to extradite Kurdish and Turkish political asylum seekers.
Germany, on the other hand, has criticized Ankara’s clampdown on opposition parties, civil society, and press freedom.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany