Leading Turkish and Kurdish groups in Germany Wednesday accused each other of “importing” a foreign conflict in the wake of Ankara’s cross-border offensive against a Syrian Kurdish militia. Skirmishes have erupted between the two groups in Germany since Turkey launched its operation “Olive Branch” to oust Kurdish militia, whom Ankara views as a terror group, from their Afrin enclave in northern Syria.
Three million ethnic Turks reside in Germany, the largest diaspora and a legacy of the country’s “guest worker” program of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as hundreds of thousands of Kurds.
Germany’s Turkish-dominated Coordination Council of Mosques said the conflict had been used as an excuse to launch a spate of “attacks on Turkish mosque groups” in Europe’s biggest economy.
“The fighting in northern Syria has been taken as an opportunity to incite against Turkish infrastructure and in particular mosques, and to import terror into Germany,” it said.
At least two mosques of the Turkish-controlled Ditib group were vandalized in western Germany’s Minden and the eastern city of Leipzig, the council said.
It also pointed to a brawl that broke out between Kurds and Turkish passengers at Hanover Airport Monday, which forced police to intervene to separate the two sides.
“We condemn these attacks and call for calm on all sides,” the council added.
The Kurdish Community of Germany accused Ditib imams of calling for violence against Kurds in Syria.
“The believers are told to pray for a victory of the Turkish army in the war against the Kurds,” the Kurdish group said, deploring the “instrumentalisation of religion and mosques for a war.”
“Mosques, that are partly financed by taxes and donations from citizens in Germany, are praying for glorious victory and death through jihad, the holy war,” added deputy leader Mehmet Tanriverdi.
Meanwhile, Berlin and Ankara planned to discuss Turkey’s cross-border offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria, officials said, amid controversy over German-built tanks being deployed in the conflict.
The German government has come under domestic pressure after battlefield images appeared to show Turkey deploying German-made Leopard 2 tanks in its offensive to oust Kurdish militants in northern Syria. The Kurdish Community Group of Germany accused Berlin of “complicity through weapons delivery to the terror state Turkey.”
German conservative lawmaker Norbert Roettgen, who heads the parliamentary committee of foreign affairs, urged Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to halt further arms deals with Turkey.
“It is completely out of the question for Germany to increase the combat strength of the Leopard tanks in Turkey if the Turkish army is going after the Kurds in northern Syria,” Roettgen told Tagesspiegel daily.
Under the weapons deal sealed in 2005, Ankara is prohibited only from giving or selling the tanks to third parties without prior approval from Berlin, with no other restrictions on how the tanks are used.
AFP
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