(Algemeiner) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s official visit to Germany on Friday was shrouded in tension over his constant attacks upon the State of Israel along with renewed interest in the German press concerning the activities of Turkish lobby groups in the country.
There was little fanfare around Erdogan’s visit, which consisted of two private meetings with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, while a planned trip to a soccer friendly between Germany and Turkey was canceled.
“There was a fear that there’d be anti-Israel chants,” Aydin Yasar, a Turkey specialist at the German think tank SWP, told Reuters. “It’s unlikely Scholz would want to watch it with him. At other times it would have been a nice gesture.”
