20 July 2017•Update: 20 July 2017
By Ugur Cil
ANKARA
Remarks made by German officials over the recent detention in Istanbul of six people, including a German national, are “unacceptable”, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has said.
There was “direct interference in the Turkish judiciary” in statements made by German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer and federal government spokesperson Steffen Seibert, the Turkish ministry added.
“It is impossible to accept these remarks,” it went on to say.
A Turkish court on Tuesday remanded in custody a German national, Peter Steudtner, on charges of aiding an armed terrorist organization.
Steudtner was among a group of people arrested in Buyukada, one of the Prince’s Islands near Istanbul, earlier this month.
Germany's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called on the Turkish authorities to release Steudtner, calling his detention “unjustified” and charges against the group “absurd”.
“Accusations of links to terrorist organizations have clearly been invented -- that is, unless one wishes to classify Amnesty International and other human rights organizations as terrorist organizations. That is absurd,” a ministry statement read.
However, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said such remarks “show again the double-standard in their approach to the law, of those who prevent terrorists being brought to justice by embracing members of terrorist organizations which target our country".
