Germany warns MPs with Turkish blood to avoid Turkey travel
Germany’s Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to MPs with Turkish origins to refrain from traveling to Turkey over safety issues after they voted for the recognition of the Armenian “genocide,” says a report.
Earlier in the month, the German parliament approved a resolution recognizing the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide.
Following the vote, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the MPs who voted for the resolution of being terrorists and having tainted blood.
According to a report published by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Saturday, the MPs were asked not to travel to Turkey as “their security could not be guaranteed.”
Cem Özdemir, Germany's Green Party leader and one of the main proponents of the resolution, has received death threats.
“I think of what happens if someone goes nuts and does street justice,” he said about traveling to Turkey.
“It is unspeakable to know for the first time that it’s no longer possible to fly there,” said Aydan Ozoguz, a Socialist Democratic Party MP. “Erdogan needs to realize that we are not an extension of Turkey,” she said.
The report notes that Germany’s MPs with Turkish origins have already been forced to cancel business and family trips to Turkey over fears of retribution.
On Wednesday, Erdogan (seen below) announced that Ankara is planning retaliatory measures in case Germany does not overturn the resolution.
“First and foremost, Germany must reverse course from this wrong step in the coming period. If Germany does not go back from this wrong step, of course, we will assess this situation and our subsequent steps will differ,” he said.
“The process after this will not be like it has been in the past. There is a process right now in Germany, where there are 3 to 3.5 million Turks. After this, this process will continue in a much more careful, much more controlled fashion,” he added.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically slaughtered in eastern Turkey through mass killing, forced relocations and starvation, a process that began in 1915 and took over several years during World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara rejects the term “genocide” and says 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks perished between 1915 and 1917, in what the Turkish government sees as the “casualties” of World War I. Only a few countries, including France and Russia, officially recognize the events as genocide.
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