Turkish President, Defense Minister Met With Heads of Turkish-German Groups

Ger­man media is report­ing that the heads of mul­ti­ple Turk­ish-Ger­man orga­ni­za­tions met with the Turk­ish Pres­i­dent and the Defense Min­is­ter in Turkey. Accord­ing to the Welt report:  

April 30, 2021 Every­one got their per­son­al pho­to with the Turk­ish pres­i­dent: Kemal Ergün, the chair­man of the Cologne-based Islam­ic com­mu­ni­ty Mil­li Görüs, Kaz­im Türk­men, his col­league from the Turk­ish reli­gious umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion DITIB, Dur­mus Yildirim, head of the far-right Grey Wolves umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion ATIB — and Kök­sal Kus, the new chair­man of the Euro­pean AKP lob­by orga­ni­za­tion UID. All of them and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ger­man-Turk­ish orga­ni­za­tions had trav­eled to Ankara this week and were received by Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan and Turk­ish Defense Min­is­ter Hulusi Akar. Pho­tos of the meet­ing were cir­cu­lat­ed on the net by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment. The con­tent of the talks was not made pub­lic.[…]  

For years, experts have point­ed to the close ties between the par­tic­i­pat­ing orga­ni­za­tions and the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment. Erdo­gan’s meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of UID, DITIB, Mil­li Görüs, ATIB, the Müsi­ad busi­ness asso­ci­a­tion and the Fed­er­a­tion of Turk­ish Demo­c­ra­t­ic Ide­al­ist Asso­ci­a­tions in Ger­many (ADÜTDF), which also belongs to the Gray Wolves spec­trum, has a “new dimen­sion.” There are “all orga­ni­za­tions and insti­tu­tions, which have rank and name in the net­work of the AKP”. They had appar­ent­ly con­clud­ed that “a com­mon strat­e­gy” was need­ed.[…]  

ADÜTDF Pres­i­dent Sen­türk Dogruy­ol also pub­lished a pho­to on social media of a meet­ing with the head of the far-right Turk­ish par­ty MHP, Devlet Bahceli. [Trans­lat­ed by DeepL with edits]  

Read the rest here.   

Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG) is the Ger­man branch of Mil­lî Görüş, a Turk­ish reli­gious and polit­i­cal move­ment found­ed by Necmet­tin Erbakan, Erdoğan’s polit­i­cal men­tor, which has called for an end to the sec­u­lar regime in Turkey. The GIOR has report­ed that the Ger­man gov­ern­ment is assert­ing that Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s AKP par­ty has inten­si­fied its rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş in Ger­many.  

Accord­ing to US media, Ger­many’s Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion has said that the Fed­er­a­tion of Asso­ci­a­tions of Turk­ish Demo­c­ra­t­ic Ide­al­ists (ADÜTDF) and the Union of Turk­ish-Islam­ic Cul­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tions in Europe (ATİB) are umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing the Gray Wolves in Europe. The Gray Wolves are a right-wing, pan-Turk­ish, ultra­na­tion­al­ist Turk­ish youth and street move­ment found­ed in the 1960s. The Office describes the Gray Wolves as spread­ing nation­al­ist and right-wing extrem­ist thought and as hav­ing con­nec­tions to the Turk­ish ultra­na­tion­al­ist Nation­al Action Par­ty (MHP), the AKP’s gov­ern­ment coali­tion part­ner, though the MHP “rejects any organ­ic ties” with the Gray Wolves.  

The Union of Inter­na­tion­al Democ­rats (UID) describes itself as an NGO found­ed in 2004 that oper­ates in  sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries and which iden­ti­fies com­bat­ting Islam­o­pho­bia as one of its pur­pos­es. Ger­man media has described the UID as a lob­by­ing group for Pres­i­dent Erdoğan and his AKP polit­i­cal par­ty. Ger­man domes­tic intel­li­gence has mon­i­tored the UID, describ­ing it as “nation­al­ist” and incom­pat­i­ble with Ger­many’s free demo­c­ra­t­ic order. GIOR has report­ed that its head, Kök­sal Kus, was a mem­ber of the ADÜTDF.  

The Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs, also known as DITIB, man­ages over 900 mosques in Ger­many. The Turk­ish Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet) deter­mines the the­o­log­i­cal guide­lines for the imams’ ser­mons, and the Turk­ish con­sulate pays their salaries. 

Oth­er rel­e­vant GIOR report­ing has includ­ed:  

• In April 2021, we report­ed that Erdoğan spoke at a UID meeting.

• In April 2021, we report­ed about a DITIB imam train­ing pro­gram in Germany, 

• In March 2021, we report­ed that DITIB, IGMG, and the Diyanet were sell­ing a book call­ing for death for insult­ing the Prophet Mohammed and approv­ing “light beat­ing” for women.