Erdogan visit sows panic among Turks

Germany

It was 11am and the Turkish barber shop in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district buzzed with the sound of clippers.

But the atmosphere was subdued. Outsiders were greeted with suspicion. ‘‘Don’t ask me about politics,’’ said a customer. ‘‘If people here ask questions, you start thinking: are they a spy?’’

Decades after the end of the Cold War, a sense of mistrust is palpable once more in Berlin.

This time, however, it is Germany’s 3 million-strong Turkish population who have been racked by intelligence scandals and denunciations.

The tensions were highlighted by the arrival last week of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who yesterday concluded a three-day visit aimed at improving his relationship with Germany.

This reached a low point last year when he compared German officials to Nazis,

and was marred this year when he was photographed with the German football stars Mesut Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan, who are of Turkish heritage – which led to an acrimonious debate about dual citizenship and national identity.

With an economic crisis raging in Turkey, Erdogan arrived hoping to secure investment from Europe’s biggest economy.

But his visit served more to highlight the deep divisions between the countries – and in Germany’s largest immigrant community.

Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, Turkey has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the alleged perpetrators – arresting thousands and reportedly kidnapping suspected plotters overseas.

Critics say the crackdown is little more than a witch hunt of government opponents, whom the state denounces as ‘‘terrorist’’ followers of Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric Ankara accuses of organising the coup. Merkel has criticised the crackdown.

Yet on Friday, Erdogan asked Germany to extradite Gulenists to Turkey – an additional strain on relations.

For the fugitive Gulenists and secular opposition activists who fled to Germany after the coup, his visit was a source of anger and fear.

In Germany’s more longstanding Turkish community, however, many back Erdogan. While thousands of protesters gathered across Germany to demonstrate against his visit, supporters also turned out in force.

The division and mistrust has been deepened by a series of scandals over intelligence operations targeting the opposition in Germany on behalf of the Turkish state. After the attempted coup, a dozen Turkish imams in Germany were placed under investigation by the German authorities on suspicion of spying for Turkey. Ankara denied any illegal activity, and the case was later closed. – The Times