Erdoğan Hosts Turkish-European Lobbying Group

A Turk­ish-Euro­pean lob­by­ing group is report­ing that it is being host­ed by Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan at his pres­i­den­tial com­plex. Accord­ing to a Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats Face­book post:

Dur­ing the #UID Kızılc­a­hamam work­shop, our Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is host­ing us in the Pres­i­den­tial Com­plex. We are vis­it­ing the complex’s muse­um and library in the com­pa­ny of UID Pres­i­dent Kök­sal Kuş. [Trans­lat­ed by Face­book with edits]

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Anoth­er Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats Face­book post said that Kuş pre­sent­ed Erdoğan with a gift.

The Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats (UID; for­mer­ly known as the Union of Euro­pean Turk­ish Democ­rats) describes itself as a vol­un­tary NGO  found­ed in 2004 that oper­ates in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries. Its aims include increas­ing the eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal, and social activ­i­ties of Turks and “sis­ter com­mu­ni­ties” abroad with­out alien­at­ing their iden­ti­ties and val­ues. Its aims also include com­bat­ting Islam­o­pho­bia. Ger­man media has described the UID as a lob­by­ing group for Pres­i­dent Erdoğan and his AKP that empha­sizes Turk­ish val­ues and cus­toms. The Ger­man Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion mon­i­tors the UID, describ­ing it as “nation­al­ist” and incom­pat­i­ble with Germany’s free demo­c­ra­t­ic order.