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An MP from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has called for the annihilation of all those opposing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just as in Turkey, during a speech at a mosque in Germany, Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Sunday.
AKP MP Mustafa Açıkgöz spoke on 13 January at the Yunus Emre Mosque in Neuss, which belongs to the Grey Wolves, the German daily said.
The Grey Wolves is the militant organisation of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is in alliance with the AKP.
Açıkgöz in his speech targeted those supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and members of the Gülen movement, a religious organisation led by Fethullah Gülen which Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed coup attempt in 2016 and has labelled the Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation (FETÖ).
“Just as we don’t recognise their right to life in Turkey, neither will we recognise it in Germany. No matter where in the world they flee, we will crush the supporters of the PKK and FETÖ,” Açıkgöz says in a video from the speech, shared on social media.
“These two groups are very dangerous. One is the PKK, godless enemies of religion. The other is FETÖ, a vile terrorist organisation that wants to change, distort and Christianise the Muslim faith. You have to be vigilant,” Frankfurter Rundschau quoted Açıkgöz as saying during his speech.
Açıkgöz also visited a mosque in Aachen run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB), an umbrella organisation linked to the Turkish government agency responsible for religious affairs, the Independent Industrialists and Businesspersons Association (MÜSIAD) and the AKP lobby organisation in Europe, the Union of International Democrats (UID).
The UID is organising the election campaigns of both the AKP and the MHP in Europe, as citizens of Turkey prepare to go to the polls in the first half of 2023.
Germany, which is home to 3.5 million Turkish nationals, is a European hotspot of the Turkish elections, and is inevitably affected by political tensions in Turkey. In the run-up to Turkey’s 2018 elections, Germany banned rallies of Turkish politicians on its soil, in a move defined as “Nazi tactics” by Erdoğan.
