Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is reportedly finding it difficult to secure a booking for a suitable venue to address his supporters on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg, German media reported.
Starting from Turkey’s pre-referendum process amid diplomatic crisis with Germany, the stressful relation of Turkey and Germany still manifests itself as Erdoğan is to attend the G20 summit in Germany. Erdoğan also plans to address the Turkish citizens in Germany when he arrives in this country to participate the 2017 G20 Hamburg Summit on July 7 and 8.
According to Deutsche Welle, however, some big meeting halls rejected the Turkish President’s reservation applications in the most populous German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Meanwhile, the German Foreign Ministry announced that they did not get “any official demand from Turkey.” Turkey’s Berlin Embassy also stated that they did not have any information regarding Erdoğan’s plan to hold meetings in Germany.
Nonetheless, the German media aired news that some Turkish sources’ applications to German meeting halls for Erdoğan to deliver speeches were rejected. Many halls in the German cities like Dortmund, Oberhausen, Köln and Düsseldorf rejected the applications.
According to daily German Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Stefan Löcher, manager of big hall Lanxess Arena, confirmed that the Turkish side demanded a meeting but stated, “We do not have room for Erdoğan at the moment”.
Westfalenhalle, the big hall in Dortmund, announced that they got an application for a meeting in which Erdoğan would also participate on July 9, but the hall would be closed at that time due to preparations for another program. The hall’s representatives did not announce the names of applicants while Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper claimed that the application came from an organisation company in Ankara.
German local authorities had blocked rallies by Turkish ministers aimed at promoting the presidential referendum, citing capacity problems. Erdoğan had said German actions in stopping political meetings of resident Turks that were due to be addressed by Turkish officials "were no different to those of the Nazi period".
Erdoğan delivered his last speech in Germany in May 2015 in Karlsruhe. Germany is home to about three million people of Turkish origin, the legacy of a massive "guest worker" programme in the 1960s and 70s and the biggest population of Turks in the world outside of Turkey.
