Remarks by a lawmaker from Turkey’s ruling party at a diaspora iftar, or fast-breaking dinner, in Germany have been interpreted as an indirect appeal against voting for Green politician Cem Özdemir ahead of the Baden Württemberg state election, the German Stuttgarter Zeitung daily reported.
Mustafa Varank of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), a member of parliament and former minister of industry and technology, spoke on February 21 in Esslingen at an event organized by the Union of International Democrats (UID), a Germany-based group widely described by German authorities as close to Turkey’s ruling party.
According to the report, Varank emphasized the political weight of roughly 3 million people of Turkish origin in Germany and said elections could demonstrate their influence on German politics. He also said support should not be given to politicians who do not show respect for the Turkish flag, a remark German media interpreted as an indirect swipe at Özdemir.
Özdemir, Germany’s agriculture minister and the Greens’ candidate for minister-president in Baden Württemberg, is one of the country’s most prominent politicians with Turkish roots and a longtime critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He played a leading role in Germany’s 2016 parliamentary resolution recognizing the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman era as genocide, a move that drew strong criticism from Ankara.
The UID, founded in Cologne in 2004, has long been scrutinized by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which describes it as a major organization aligned with the Turkish government that seeks to mobilize diaspora communities politically.
The controversy comes during a closely watched election that will determine the successor to Winfried Kretschmann, the long-serving Green minister-president in Baden Württemberg, a key industrial state in southwest Germany.
Christian Democratic Union candidate Manuel Hagel rejected any suggestion of coordination or support from Turkish political actors, telling Stuttgarter Zeitung that the election is solely a matter for Baden Württemberg voters and that his party does not accept direct or indirect influence from abroad.