Federal President in Turkey: Steinmeier praises the Turks' improvement work in Germany | EUROtoday

Federal President in Turkey
Steinmeier praises the Turks' improvement work in Germany

They introduced coal from underground in Essen and assembled vehicles on the meeting line in Cologne – a whole lot of 1000’s of Turks contributed to the German financial miracle from the start of the Nineteen Sixties.

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier acknowledged this achievement, which is usually forgotten by Germans, in Istanbul in the beginning of his three-day journey to Turkey: “You helped build our country, you made it strong and you belong at the heart of our society,” he stated with a view to the virtually three million folks of Turkish origin who reside in Germany in the present day. “They are not people with a migrant background – Germany is a country with a migrant background.”

Pro-Palestinian teams disrupt the tour

Steinmeier started his go to on the historic Sirkeci prepare station, from which many Turks set off for Germany. His tour of the prepare station was loudly disrupted by a bunch of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The roughly 50 women and men chanted slogans from a distance of virtually 100 meters and confirmed indicators with portraits of Steinmeier, Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The faces of Steinmeier and Netanyahu had been disfigured with Hitler beards. Despite the protest, Steinmeier was capable of go to the station with none issues.

The Federal President was greeted by the newly re-elected Mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's opponent is taken into account a future presidential candidate. Imamoglu beforehand described German-Turkish relations as one thing very particular. Erdogan will solely meet Steinmeier on the finish of his journey within the capital Ankara.

With this sequence, Steinmeier is sending the sign – no matter whether or not it’s focused or not – that Berlin is already trying on the doable post-Erdogan interval. It is becoming {that a} dialog with the chief of the opposition CHP occasion, Özgür Özel, can be deliberate.

German-Turkish historical past has two instructions

In his speech, Steinmeier recalled that the German-Turkish migration historical past had two instructions. In the nineteenth century, poverty and unemployment drove craftsmen from Germany to Anatolia. And throughout the Nazi period, Turkey turned a refuge for a lot of German artists and intellectuals.

“While Germans helped design and build the new capital Ankara in the 1930s, it was the guest workers from Turkey who helped build the economy of the young Federal Republic since the 1960s and who have now made a decisive contribution to our prosperity for four generations “stated Steinmeier.

The governments in Bonn and Ankara signed a recruitment settlement in 1961. According to the Foreign Office, round 876,000 folks from Turkey got here to Germany on its foundation. Many of the so-called visitor employees introduced their households over and stayed ceaselessly.

Accompanied by visitors with Turkish roots

In order to hint their tales, Steinmeier invited a lot of visitors with Turkish roots to accompany him. The restaurateur Arif Keles, who’s the third technology to run a kebab store in Berlin, attracted probably the most consideration. He even took a frozen kebab skewer weighing 60 kilograms, full with sauces and different substances, on the aircraft to Istanbul to serve it that night at a reception on the German ambassador's summer season residence. In the culinary space, the kebab is an instance of how a lot Germany and Turkey have grown collectively, stated Steinmeier. “I like to eat one too.”

Steinmeiers flew just some weeks after native elections in Turkey, whose significance went past the native. Voters gave Erdogan a lesson on the finish of March. For the primary time in its historical past, his Islamic conservative AKP was now not the strongest power within the nation. Instead, the nation's largest opposition occasion, the CHP, triumphed. With his journey, Steinmeier additionally needs to get a really feel for a way issues might proceed politically in Turkey.

dpa