While Germany is home to 3 million Turks, the European nation is also home to Turkey’s most notorious enemies ranging from Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) to the terror group PKK. The approaches Angela Merkel’s government have taken to Turkey are not only contradictory but dangerous. While Merkel and her ministers claim they want to expand trade with Turkey in areas covering both goods and services and while Turkish workers in Germany have long played a positive role in the development of Europe’s richest nation, this is the same government that threatened to cut off military supplies to Turkey because the Turkish Army began conducting an anti-terrorist operation against the PKK’s Syrian branch YPG earlier this year.
While the German government still refuses to recognise FETO as a terror group, thus allowing the organisation to indoctrinate the young with its cult like “educational” institutions, news has emerged that the German intelligence services have open lines of communication with the group responsible for staging the failed July Coup of 2016 which aimed to overthrow the legitimate government of Turkey.
While the German government’s answer to a parliamentary question from the Left opposition party regarding its links with FETO did not elaborate on the nature of Berlin’s links with a terror group, the very fact that Germany admitted that its intelligence agencies are in communication with FETO is a worrying sign given Germany’s bleak record of hosting anti-Turkish terror groups and organised criminal elements.
In 1993, four German neo-Nazis committed a murderous act of arson on the home of a Turkish family in the city of Solingen. Five members of the family including two small children died in the attack while 14 others were severely injured. The event marked one of the low points in post-war race relations in Germany. However, in the Merkel years violence and terrorism against Turks in Germany while the spreading of hatred against Turkishness continues to expand at a rapid pace.
In May of this year, mourners throughout the world commemorated the savage attacks, but in Solingen, one man who came to mourn the racist attack found himself on the receiving end of police brutality. 44 year old Hakan Canik attended a memorial to the slain victims of the 1993 attack only to find that supporters of the terrorist group PKK had gathered in order to mock the victims of the attack while glorifying a murderous terrorist gang.
The unarmed Canik attempted to gather a counter-protest to the PKK supporters but was told to move on by German police. As he was walking away, Canik was violently assaulted by German officers. Canik later told reporters,
“I protested against the terror supporters because they were holding banned posters of Abdullah Ocalan and PKK. I told that to German police but they told me leave rudely. I was about to leave when suddenly a police officer pushed me and held me on the ground. They tied my hands behind my back. I told them I could not breathe because I have asthma but they mocked me instead”.
It was further reported that during the brutal police assault on Canik, his watch and phone were both destroyed. Apart from the self-evident use of violent and excessive force on an unarmed man whose only intention was to peacefully demonstrate against a terrorist group that has killed 40,000 in its decades long campaign of violence, it is becoming all too clear that the German state is becoming not only sympathetic to the PKK but is actively harbouring PKK members and supporters while doing nothing to stop domestic PKK style attacks against Turks in Germany.
Since the beginning of March of 2018, over 42 PKK inspired attacks against Turks have taken place on German soil while the German government continues to feed domestic violence through a foreign policy of overt Turkophobia. This year, mosques frequented not just by Turks but other Muslims have been firebombed in Germany while Turkish owned shops have been attacked throughout the central European nation.
The silence of German officials on the recent wave of violent attacks by PKK cells in Germany has been complemented by a grossly offensive statement from Germany’s Interior Minister who recently stated “Islam doesn’t belong in Germany”. The clear implication is that the PKK does belong in Germany while practitioners of one of the world’s great religions are not welcome. This is an affront both to those who value the freedom to worship and the freedom to do so without the threat of terrorist violence.
The anti-Turkish sentiments of major European leaders are already widely known. This became especially apparent when Turkey’s President Erdogan was disallowed from speaking to the Turkish communities in Germany and the Netherlands last year. By contrast, Barack Obama peacefully addressed a large crowd in Berlin prior to his election without incident, while in 2017, a newly elected US President Trump addressed a mass gathering in Poland.
The anti-Turkish sentiments that Angela Merkel’s government has fostered have spiralled into a direct threat to the peace and security of Germany’s three million strong Turkish community. Radical Kurdish social media mouthpieces that vocally support the PKK have called to reduce Europe into “rubble and ash”. Thus, while Turks and Muslims are the first and most apparent targets of PKK terrorism, all Europeans are explicitly threatened by recent statements from pro-terrorist social media.
The PKK has a record of targeting both state and civilian targets, including resorts where the terrorist group has in the past killed European nationals. In its decades long campaign against the Republic of Turkey, the PKK have killed more people than the entire body count of Americans killed by terrorism in the history of the United States, including those killed on 9/11.
The German government’s condemnation of Turkey’s anti PKK/YPG Operation Olive Branch in Syria has now met with an equal willingness to look the other way against PKK acts of terror on its own soil. This irresponsible attitude puts the lives of all German residents at risk. The irrational strategy of Berlin’s elite appears to be aimed at attaining support of Germany’s Kurdish population, as well as an attempt to pander to the growing anti-Islamic far-right in the country. Oddly, they don’t seem to care about further alienating the large Turkish population who now live under constant threats of violence on formerly peaceful European streets.
This is the complete opposite of a sensible approach. All German and European political leaders must condemn all acts of terrorism and move against PKK cells based on their open threats that are being made on social media. The failure of Germany and its EU colleagues to condemn PKK terrorism, take radical police action to stop it and monitor pro-PKK social media, means that the wider international community must speak out and act out.
It is high time for the United Nations Security Council to condemn German leaders for their dangerous stance on the PKK unless Berlin takes urgent action to rectify the current situation. Germany’s refusal to use its own police resources against the threat of PKK terrorism, let alone its refusal to cooperate with Turkey to neutralise a common threat ( a height of negligence that is on par with any other state which harbours violent terrorist groups), means that the world’s highest international peace keeping body must take decisive action. Germany has become a giant safe haven for PKK terrorists and their fellow travellers and the sooner this is reversed, the sooner the streets of both Europe and Turkey can be places of peace.
Just because Germany is the largest European economy does not mean it is above the law, nor does it mean Germany’s clearly anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish leaders can somehow get away with putting all German residents at risk because of their offensive prejudices. The UN Security Council must condemn Germany and put forward a resolution which would force its government to work with Turkey and the wider international community in order to fight this very real and very dangerous problem. This is the only peaceful, proper and secure way forward.
Germany is now guilty of more than just negligence when it comes to fostering an attitude of racism against Turks. Germany is now overtly taking the side of PKK terrorists while admitting to intelligence collusion with FETO, all the while Turks living and working in Germany are becoming victims of an increased number of attacks whether by PKK supporters or police who exert undue and unjustified brutality against Turks standing peacefully against a terrorist cult.
Germany seems happy to buy Turkish products, eat Turkish foods, employ Turkish workers and use Turkish economic services but hypocritically has allowed its soil to become a swamp in which every terrorist enemy of the Turkey and Turkishness is allowed to swim. This swamp must be urgently drained.
