If what German President Joachim Gauck said in his joint press briefing with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and later in his speech at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University (METU) — a school with the reputation of a traditional leftist stronghold — can be classified as “strong criticism,” then the reaction of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has to be classified as hate speech.
This two-day Turkish-German diatribe should not be regarded as merely strong-worded polemics between the two allied statesmen. It is rather a reflection of the troubled course of relations of Turkey under Erdogan with the Western world, and above all with the European Union.