ANKARA

Turkey's EU minister said Prime Minister Erdogan's highly-anticipated visit and speech in Germany on Saturday gave the Turkish community in the country sincere messages encouraging integration.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday that the core of Erdogan's message was theoretical and it clearly distinguished integration from assimilation and maintained that assimilation is a crime against humanity.

"Some German media outlets unfortunately misunderstood this and interpreted it as if Turkey claimed Germany was implementing assimilation policies," Cavusoglu said.

The EU minister also criticized that some German media outlets wrote slogans like 'Go to hell Erdogan' prior to the prime minister's visit. "It is not possible to accept such disrespect," he said.

Before the visit, German newspaper Der Spiegel criticized Erdogan's reactions after the mining tragedy in western city of Turkey with a headline saying "Go to hell Erdogan."

European Parliament elections

Cavusoglu said the results of the European Parliament elections marked significant gains for right wing and eurosceptic political parties.

The voting in France saw Marine Le Pen´s far right National Front taking 25 percent of the vote. In Britain, the victory of the UK Independence Party, which advocates withdrawal from the EU, was described as a "political earthquake" by its leader Nigel Farage.

The centre right European People´s Party is again the largest grouping in the assembly with 212 seats, while the Socialists remained the second largest with 186 seats.

"Before the elections, we shared our concerns about this possible outcome," said Cavusoglu.

However, he said interpreting the results regarding Turkey's bid to join the EU would be deceptive. "We should evaluate the outcome in connection with the future of the European Parliament and its policies."

Cavusoglu also said the rise of the racist, Islamophobic and anti-immigration supporting parties in the elections was a threat to European values.

www.aa.com.tr/en