France24, Feb. 18, 2017 – Turkey’s prime minister drew criticism Saturday for holding a rally in Germany urging Turks there to support a referendum that would expand President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.
Binali Yildirim also told the several thousands of people at a stadium in Oberhausen, in western Germany, that Turkey would track down the participants in last July’s failed military coup “in all the holes where they are hiding”.
Germany is home to about three million people of Turkish origin, the legacy of a massive “guest worker” programme in the 1960s and 70s and the biggest population of Turks in the world outside of Turkey.
They will be able to vote in the April 16 referendum, which would discard the post of prime minister for the first time in Turkey’s history.
Yildirim met Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier Saturday during the Munich Security Conference, where she raised the correspondent’s case.
“The chancellor noted that it was fundamental for Yucel to receive consular or embassy assistance… that he be treated fairly and in accordance with the law,” her spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
Yildirim was to meet US Vice President Mike Pence at the conference later Saturday.
(AFP)