Pro-Israeli German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a staunch Palestine supporter, in Istanbul on Saturday for talks on ties and regional developments, including Israel’s war on Gaza.
Scholz and Erdoğan will hold their third in-person meeting in the past four months, marking increased diplomatic traffic between the NATO allies.
Scholz is expected to bring up the Russia-Ukraine war and irregular migration, two key topics in German domestic politics, while Erdoğan will be expressing Ankara’s firm stance against Israel’s aggression, international law violations and the risk of sparking a regional war, Turkish media reports said Thursday.
The pair will also discuss the long-stalled Eurofighter jet sale to Ankara. Erdoğan will urge Germany to lift its reserve on the planned purchase despite their NATO alliance.
German news magazine Der Spiegel last week reported that the German government may be preparing for a change of course in arms exports to Türkiye.
Türkiye-Greece normalization steps, trade, political and military ties, the war on terror, visa issues, the update of the customs union agreement and energy cooperation are also expected to be on the agenda.
Turkish officials have complained that its citizens are being forced to wait for months for visas from EU countries and then are given visas of extremely short duration or are all-too-often denied visas with no explanation.
The two leaders will hold a news conference following their meeting, according to deputy German government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner.
Scholz’s trip to Türkiye comes after saying Germany would continue to help Israel “defend itself” by supplying weapons.
Germany’s firm support of Israel puts the EU country at loggerheads with its NATO ally.
Erdoğan has branded Israel a terror state over its genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 42,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, accuses the West of “trying to exonerate the murderers” and defends Hamas as a liberation movement defending its lands.
Over a month after Oct. 7, Scholz and Erdoğan traded barbs over Israel’s attacks on Gaza at a joint news conference in Berlin.
