Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany needed more evidence if it was to class the movement of US-based cleric Fetullah Gulen as terrorist organisation.
Speaking at a Berlin news conference alongside Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, she said that Germany needed more material if they were to proscribe the group that Ankara blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016.
“We take very seriously the evidence Turkey provided but we need more material if we are to classify it in the same way we have classified the (Kurdish) PKK,” she told reporters.
The issue is one of the key areas of contention between the two countries as Mr Erdogan began his three-day visit on Thursday. During the press conference, Mr Erdogan called on Berlin to extradite what he said were the hundreds of supporters of the cleric living in Germany.
He also said that Turkey had the right to request the extradition from Germany of Can Dundar, former editor of opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, describing him as an agent who had been convicted of espionage.
Mr Dundar and a colleague were sentenced in 2016 to five years in prison for publishing a video purporting to show Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria. They were released pending appeal and Dundar left the country.
The two leaders also agreed to aim for a four-way meeting with themselves and the presidents of France and Russia in October to discuss the situation of the rebel-held Syrian region of Idlib.
In an editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily, Mr Erdogan said he wanted to “turn the page” on a long period of tensions, sparked by Berlin’s criticism of his crackdown on opponents after the failed coup, highlighting the economic importance of his trip to Turkey.
Mr Erdogan is eager to improve ties with Europe’s biggest economy and secure investments to shore up a struggling economy at home. The meeting came a day after Germany beat Turkey to become the Euro 2024 host nation, following a tight race that took on political significance when Mr Erdogan fanned accusations of German discrimination in football.
His state visit to Germany, complete with military honours, is Erdogan’s first there since becoming president in 2014 and comes as he is sparring with US President Donald Trump and the Turkish economy is in rapid decline.
But critics, including rights campaigners and German politicians, are angered by the red carpet treatment for a leader who has built an increasingly authoritarian reputation and just 18 months ago accused Berlin of “Nazi practices”.