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Germany ‘halts all arms shipment to Turkey’

Friday, 21 July 2017 10:08 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 21 July 2017 10:20 AM ]

A man holds a UMP, a submachine gun developed and manufactured by German company Heckler and Koch. (Photo by AFP)

Germany has frozen all arms shipment to Turkey after Ankara arrested several human rights activists, including a German national.

The Bild newspaper reported on Friday that Germany was “freezing all planned and ongoing arms deliveries to Turkey.”

In the months after the July 2016 abortive coup in Turkey against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Germany had already blocked 11 separate arms shipments to Turkey, including handguns, ammunition, and weapons components.

The latest move came after a Turkish court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for six human rights activists for allegedly aiding a “terror” group, among them German citizen Peter Steudtner.

The arrests further strained the already tarnished relations between the two NATO allies.

Relations between Turkey and Germany, which is home to three million ethnic Turks, have been badly strained over what Europeans describe as Turkey’s human rights violations.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble criticized Turkey for acting like the former Communist East Germany.

He advised Germans traveling to Turkey to be careful not to get arrested as the crackdown against opposition and dissent continues.

“If Turkey does not stop playing this little game, we need to tell people: ‘You travel to Turkey at your own risk — we can’t guarantee you anything anymore,’” Schaeuble separately told Bild.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (photo by AFP)

“Turkey is arresting people arbitrarily and not respecting even minimal consular standards,” said Schaeuble, comparing Erdogan’s Turkey with the former communist German Democratic Republic (GDR).

“It reminds me of the way it was in the GDR. When you traveled there, you knew, if something happens to you, nobody can help you,” he said.

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