Police on alert as Turkish minister speaks in Cologne

Last week, Berlin blocked three Turkish rallies aimed at promoting a “yes” vote in a referendum on constitutional reforms in Turkey next month. While Germany doesn’t shy away from the darkest chapters of its history, such comments caused outrage among politicians and society at large. Read the latest in our First 100 Days section.

Speaking in Istanbul, the Turkish president fanned the flames with a stinging verbal attack.

In Ankara, the Turkish foreign ministry summoned the German ambassador for an explanation, ministry sources said.

The turmoil in relations between the two countries has been ongoing since Germany criticized the large-scale crackdown on suspected coup-plotters and those alleged to have links to Kurdish militants following last July’s failed coup. Her office has yet to comment on the contents of the call. “It makes me deeply sad to see that a liberal democracy is slipping ever further away in the country and, instead, an authoritarian, religious, gilded leadership system increasingly gets a foothold”, said President Joachim Gauck to Der Spiegel magazine. We are not treating you like that, and you have to treat Turkey properly.

Merkel’s spokesman deplored Erdogan’s Nazi comparison, and urged closer dialogue between the two governments to address problems in bilateral relations.

But he cautioned against banning Erdogan from visiting Germany or breaking off diplomatic ties, saying that such moves would push Ankara “straight into the arms of [Russian President Vladmir] Putin, which no one wants”.

Tensions between Germany and Turkey have escalated into a war of words.

Germany has reconnaissance aircraft deployed at a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation base in Turkey as part of the alliance’s fight against the Islamic State group.

In a statement on its website, the city of Gaggenau said it did not know if the Gaggenau branch of the Union of European-Turkish Democrats (UETD) would now carry out the event at another venue.

In protest, Bozdag cancelled his meeting with German justice minister Heiko Maas in Karlsruhe. “Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past”. “They must be registered and subject to checks”, he said.

“I think that coming here to advocate a change of the Turkish constitution that will only strengthen the Islamo-fascist leader Erdogan of Turkey more than Parliament, Turkish parliament, is the worst thing that could happen to us”, Wilders told reporters at a campaign event.

“They do not let our friends speak in Germany”. But Zeybekci said he would still go ahead with the visit. It is scheduled to take place in the German port city on Tuesday. German officials insisted the decisions were made at a state or local level, and were centered on security concerns.