German minister criticizes Turkish diaspora for Erdoğan support

A leading German politician has sharply criticized the wave of support for incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the country's large expatriate Turkish population, in the wake of the president's close win in Sunday night's run-off election, reported dpa.

"We have seen in our dealings with Putin what happens when you talk yourself into a situation," Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir told journalists in the north-western town of Solingen on Monday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The turnaround that we finally have, thank God, in dealing with Putin is now also needed in dealing with Turkish ultra-nationalism, it is now also needed in dealing with fundamentalism," he added.

Erdoğan's re-election had concrete consequences for society in Germany, partly because many imams working in Germany were sent by the Turkish religious authority, he said.

Germans have to talk about the consequences "if the next generation of imams from Turkey will be even more nationalistic, even more religiously fundamentalist. They will be the ones who influence children in Germany," said Özdemir.

Erdoğan won by a narrow majority, but won about a two-thirds majority among the approximately 1.5 million eligible voters in Germany.

He wrote that he was interested in what was going on in Germany, where Erdoğan supporters were celebrating "without having to answer for the consequences of their vote."

Many people in Turkey would have to go through poverty and lack of freedom, he wrote. "They are rightly angry. This will have to be talked about!"

Hundreds of people in Germany, which is home to Turkey's largest diaspora, celebrated his victory on Sunday evening with spontaneous car parades and marches.

The chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, Gökay Sofuoğlu, rejected Özdemir's comments, urging him not to "bash" Turkish voters in Germany.

He seemed to praise Turkish voters for being so actively involved in politics, suggesting that Germany was lacking this extent of political involvement.

Sofuoğlu went on to say, "I have the feeling that many people here in Germany don't identify with this country." They have the feeling that they do not belong here, he added.

He added that if German politicians made Turkish voters a better offer, voting behaviour and political participation would change.

Celebrations in support of Turkey's president were widespread on Sunday night, with honking cars decorated with Turkish flags driving through the streets of large German cities including the capital Berlin, Duisburg in the west of the country and the northern port of Hamburg.

According to the police, the celebrations remained mostly peaceful, though there were some reports of clashes and misdemeanours in the cities of Mannheim and Dortmund.

An estimated 3 million people in Germany have Turkish roots, with Turkish people the nation's largest immigrant group, due to the "guest worker" policy adopted by the German government in the 1950s.