[ad_1]
Berlin (dpa) – After the abrogation of the state of emergency in Turkey, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again slightly defused travel advice for popular tourist destinations with German tourists.
A whole series of warnings related to the urgency has been removed. However, the ministry still reports that there is an "increased risk of arrest".
According to a report by the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", the federal government has also refrained from a new sanction against Turkey : the cap of state guarantees Hermes for exports to Turkey.
The federal government significantly strengthened travel advisories for the first time, almost exactly one year ago, on July 20, 2017, in response to the arrest of human rights defender Peter Steudtner. It was an essential element of a new and tighter federal government policy, to which the foreign minister of the time, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), was responsible. This was preceded by more than 20 arrests of German citizens for political reasons since the coup attempt failed in 2016.
In September 2017, shortly before the federal election, a further hardening was followed by a concrete warning of arrests in tourist areas such as Antalya, a popular destination for German tourists. "Such arrests can be expected in all parts of Turkey, including tourist areas," he said in the following months on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This sentence has not been there since May 7th. On June 24, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected to Turkey, which now has even greater power. At the same time, the parliamentary elections were held in which Erdogan's AKP was confirmed as the strongest force, but lost the absolute majority. A few days later – June 27 and 28 – as well as the day after the lifting of the state of emergency decreed on Thursday after the attempted abortive coup, the Foreign Ministry has to new revised travel notice.
Warnings of urgent regulations, such as 14-day detention without protest in a court of law or up to seven years of pre-trial detention, were deleted. The warning regarding arrests has also been somewhat weakened in general. Although there has been up to now discussions about the fact that the probability of arrest has "increased significantly", we can read now: "We continue to badume that". there is an increased risk of arrest ".
Authorities generally accuse those concerned of joining a terrorist group or the so-called Gülen movement, which accuses Erdogan of coup attempt in July 2016. "Even minor contact points with this move or its affiliates or companies, which may even be unaware or only claimed by third parties, may be sufficient to arrest, "according to notes.
The most important thing for the Turkish government is that there is no more explicit warning for holiday areas. Antalya is in the constituency of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu, who, during a visit to the International Tourism Exchange in Berlin in March, urged the repeal of travel advice. "The current travel warning does not reflect the reality in Turkey and it does not reflect current bilateral relations," he said.
Turkish tourism has already recovered despite the travel advice of the German Foreign Ministry. Cavusoglu hopes that record figures like the 5.6 million German tourists can be reached again from 2015 until the end of 2018. Last year, the number of Turkish visitors coming from Germany it was only 3.6 million, considering the terrorist threat and the arrest of German citizens.
In addition to travel advice, the federal government imposed a cap of 1.5 billion euros on Hermes guarantees as a punitive measure. But the rest remained without consequences, because the upper limit was very high. The amount of financial protection has even increased. The "FAZ" reports in its Saturday edition, citing the Federal Ministry of the Economy, that the cap should not be continued this year.
The Hermes guarantees are designed to protect German exporters against losses due to the non-payment of their foreign trading partners. Turkey is one of the countries for which these guarantees are most widely used. In 2016, more Hermes warranties were granted only for Russia, Egypt and the United States.
Source link
