German Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel has said that “the government toughening its stance against Turkey has produced its initial results”.
According to Deutshce Welle citing Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper, Gabriel remarked that “the economic pressure has produced its results”.
Gabriel had demanded that the rights defenders including German citizen Peter Steudtner, journalist Deniz Yücel and translator Meşale Tolu detained on remand be released, and added that “their policies towards Turkey are going to change”.
Afterwards, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning for its citizens about travelling to Turkey on July 20 and for the German companies about making investments to Turkey.
Gabriel stressed that following this warning, Turkey has withdrawn the list of companies which Turkey claimed to “support terrorism”. The list included 680 German enterprises including Daimler and BASF.
Since the subject sparked debates, Gabriel said that “[President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan told that the German companies were included in the list because of a misunderstanding”.
Touching upon the German citizens being arrested, Gabriel added that “We have to protect our citizens. We cannot tolerate Turkish President Erdoğan getting German citizens arrested”.