German official charges Turkey with interference

Dec 29, 2009, 12:31 GMT

Berlin - An official in the German city-state of Berlin charged Turkey Tuesday with interfering in German affairs.

Germany's biggest foreign-citizen group comprises 1.7 million Turkish nationals.

'In some areas of integration we have problems because the Turkish state regards itself as politically responsible for Turks in Germany and interferes,' said Ehrhart Koerting, interior minister of Berlin state, in an interview in the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost.

Official German policy is to integrate immigrants into the mainstream culture. Germany's overall population is 80 million.

Koerting said an example of such interference was a visit two years ago by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to inspect the scene of a building fire which killed nine Turkish residents of the southern German city of Ludwigshafen.

'The Turkish state regards its emigrants as still being citizens of the country. That is not right,' said Koerting.

He said many immigrants from Turkey had integrated into Germany with 80,000 in Berlin alone having given up their Turkish citizenship to be naturalized as Germans. Another 140,000 city residents remain Turkish citizens and are treated by the city as aliens.