Erdoğan’s visit to Berlin was canceled at the last minute – a German magazine calls him an “arsonist”.

At the last minute, he canceled his visit scheduled for tomorrow, Friday (27/1). Tayyip Erdogan at Germany and his meeting with Chancellor Olaf Solz the Turkish presidency after a disagreement between the two staffs.

The news was broadcast by the RND network, citing imgs in the Turkish ruling party.

According to the same information, the Turkish president was going to meet with Olaf Solz at the chancellery tomorrow. The visit, however, was never officially announced, as in the end the two sides – through the diplomatic adviser of the chancellery, Jens Pletner, and the associate of the Turkish president, İbrahim Kalin – disagreed on the time of the meeting, but mainly on the issues that the German side wanted to raise. – and even publicly. According to the RND, the chancellery wanted to publicly criticize the recent appearance of AKP MP Mustafa Atsikgiez in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia, in the context of an election event at a mosque belonging to the “Grey Wolves” network.

The parliamentarian, as reported by the Athens News Agency, demanded from the floor the extermination of Kurds and Gulenists and provoked the intervention of Foreign Minister Analena Burbok: “If the Turkish representatives do not play by the rules, we will have to consider the consequences. Appearances like that of the Turkish MP in Neuss must not be repeated. Hate and hate speech have no place in Germany,” Ms. Burbock wrote in a post on Twitter and recalled that “undoubtedly, foreign campaign events had to be approved,” while warning that “if the Turkish representatives do not follow their rules of the game, we have to consider the consequences.” Representatives of the Turkish embassy in Berlin were then summoned to the German Foreign Ministry for the same issue.

In addition, Mrs. Burbok, speaking the day before yesterday at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, again requested the release of the publisher Osman Kavala, stressing that “it is unacceptable for a member of the Council of Europe to arrest someone for political reasons.” From the same stage, the Minister of Foreign Affairs also referred to the case of the Kurdish HDP politician Selahattin Demirtas, as well as others for whom the European Court has ruled that they are illegally detained in Turkey.

As reported by RND, Tayyip Erdogan’s plans to visit Berlin had led to speculation that he would use his presence for his election campaign. Assurances were given by AKP circles that the party would respect the ban issued by the German government as early as the 2017 elections, but it was requested that “the same ban should also apply to opposition parties, which are already campaigning in Germany.” In the 2018 parliamentary elections, more than 4 million eligible voters in Turkey lived abroad, almost half of them in Germany.

“The Arsonist” in Stern Magazine

The attitude of the Turkish president ahead of the May elections is also reported today by Stern magazine, which is published with Tayyip Erdogan on the cover and under the title “Erdogan, the Arsonist”.

“In order to secure power, the Turkish president is stirring up dangerous conflicts – and in Germany,” reads the subtitle. In the related article, entitled “The Agitator”, the magazine describes the upcoming elections as a “fight for Erdogan’s place in history” and asks whether the “eternal sultan” can fall when he is at the center of the international stage .

“Sometimes one gets the impression that the Turkish president decides the fate of entire regions of the world that are plagued by crises. He negotiates with Russian President Putin just as he did with Ukrainian President Zelensky, blocks the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, even if in doing so he insults the Alliance he belongs to and makes the West look weak,” comments columnist. In the same article it is also pointed out that “Erdogan incites passions when it suits him, both in the Kurdish regions of Turkey and in Syria and even in Germany, where he allows hard-liners to attack Turkish opposition”.

Referring to Tayyip Erdoğan’s behavior abroad, the editor notes the escalation of threats to Greece, with which it disputes over several islands. “”Turkey produces Tayfun missiles. What will happen if they hit Athens? Not that we want to do that, but be smart. If you continue to arm the islands, we will not do anything?”, said the Turkish President recently, who knows that these statements resonate inside the country. Erdogan needs enemies, he needs chaos, to rally his voters. He is very good at fighting. However, no matter how much he presents himself as a warlord, it is not likely that there will be a military confrontation with Greece”, the article of the German magazine emphasizes.

Regarding the May elections, the author of the article states that the Turkish president needs every vote, even that of the Turks of Germany, “whom he is trying to bring to his side by all means.”

Stern also hosts a statement by opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu: “Erdogan has turned into an authoritarian leader. Someone who rules with a bat in hand can never offer anything good to society.”