Tag Archives: Germany

Huge WW2 bomb to be defused close to German gold reserves

FILE PHOTO: The skyline of Frankfurt, Germany, May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Frankfurt’s city center, an area including police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems and Germany’s central bank storing $70 billion in gold reserves will be evacuated on Sunday to allow the defusing of a 1.8 ton World War Two bomb.

A spokesman for the German Bundesbank said, however, “the usual security arrangements” would remain in place while experts worked to disarm the bomb, dropped by the British air force and uncovered during excavation of a building site.

The Bundesbank headquarters, less than 600 meters from the location of the bomb, stores 1,710 tonnes of gold underground, around half the country’s reserves.

“We have never defused a bomb of this size,” bomb disposal expert Rene Bennert told Reuters, adding that it had been damaged on impact when it was dropped between 1943 and 1945.

Airspace for 1.5 kilometers around the bomb site will also be closed.

Frankfurt city officials said more than 60,000 residents would be evacuated for at least 12 hours. The evacuation area would also include 20 retirement homes, the Opera house and the diplomatic quarter.

Bomb disposal experts will make use of a “Rocket Wrench” to try and unscrew the fuses attached to the HC 4,000 bomb. If that fails, a water jet will be used to cut the fuses away from the bomb, Bennert told Reuters.

The most dangerous part of the exercise will be applying the wrench, Bennert said.

Roads and transport systems, including the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic.

It is not unusual for unexploded bombs from World War Two air raids to be found in German cities, but rarely are they so large and in such a sensitive position.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor and Frank Siebelt; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Germany keen to avoid new ‘ice age’ in ties between Russia, West

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel walk out to meet the press where Tillerson made a statement about the flooding in Houston, Texas, but declined questions, prior to a bilateral meeting, at the State Department, in Washington, U.S., August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Theiler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Germany and Europe want to ensure that new U.S. sanctions against Russia do not lead to a new “ice age” in ties between Russia and the West, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Tuesday.

Gabriel said he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about the sanctions in a meeting in Washington, adding that he was grateful that U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to coordinate on further measures with U.S. allies.

“We as Europeans have great concerns that this will have unintended consequences for Europe. We don’t want to completely destroy our business relations with Russia, especially in the energy sector,” Gabriel said.

Trump this month approved new sanctions on Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and for what U.S. intelligence agencies say was its meddling in the U.S. presidential election, a charge Russia denies.

Gabriel has criticized the United States for the move, saying the new punitive measures expose European companies involved in energy projects in Russia to fines for breaching U.S. law.

Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries even urged the EU to retaliate against the United States if the new sanctions on Russia should end up penalizing German firms.

Gabriel said European leaders were concerned that the latest sanctions would not only have economic consequences, but could also “lead to a new ice age between Russia and the United States and the West.”

Despite European concerns about the sanctions, Gabriel insisted that Moscow must do its part to implement a fragile ceasefire agreement in place for eastern Ukraine, including the withdrawal of heavy weapons.

“That would be a starting point for improved relations,” Gabriel said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President on Monday called for Russia and Ukraine to increase their efforts to implement the ceasefire agreement.

The conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists has claimed more than 10,000 lives since it erupted in 2014. Germany and France have tried to convince both sides to implement a peace deal agreed in Minsk in 2015 but with little success so far.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Germany’s Schulz says he would demand U.S. withdraw nuclear arms

FILE PHOTO: Election campaign posters for the upcoming general elections of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) with a headshot of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for chancellor, Martin Schulz, are pictured in Berlin, Germany August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) – The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) pledged to have U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from German territory if, against the odds, he defeats Angela Merkel to become chancellor next month.

Addressing a campaign rally in Trier late on Tuesday, SPD leader Martin Schulz also said he, unlike Merkel, would resist demands by U.S. President Donald Trump for NATO members to increase their defense spending.

“Trump wants nuclear armament. We are against this,” Schulz said, apparently trying to differentiate his party from Merkel’s more hawkish Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “As chancellor, I will commit Germany to having the nuclear weapons stationed here withdrawn from our country,” he said.

About 20 U.S. nuclear warheads are thought to be stationed at a military base in Buechel, in western Germany, according to unofficial estimates. The U.S. embassy in Berlin said it does not comment on nuclear weapons in Germany.

Taking advantage of Trump’s extreme unpopularity in Germany, Schulz also said he would use the money Merkel had earmarked for increased military spending for other purposes.

“What to do with our money is the central question of this election,” he said, referring to a 30 billion-euro tax surplus. “Trump demands that 2 percent of GDP, 30 billion euros, should go to military spending, and Merkel agreed to that without asking German citizens.”

Germany and other NATO members had already pledged to raise their defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product before Trump was elected. While most of them have increased spending on their militaries, only a few have reached the 2 percent goal, and Germany is not one of them.

Most recent polls show Schulz’s party polling at around 24 percent, some 14 percentage points behind Merkel. Most expect a booming economy and low unemployment will carry her into a fourth term in Sept. 24 elections.

However, with Germans historically wary of using military force since World War Two, Schulz’s message may resonate among the SPD’s core voters.

After 12 years in office, Merkel has become increasingly confident on the global stage. She has pushed for Germany to become more militarily self-reliant, partly in response to Trump’s hinting that he might abandon NATO allies if they do not spend more on defense.

Earlier this year, Merkel said the times when Germany could rely on others to defend it were “to some extent in the past” .

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt)

Merkel attacks Turkey’s ‘misuse’ of Interpol warrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, top candidate of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU), presents the new interactive election campaign ahead of the upcoming federal election in Berlin, Germany August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Turkey’s use of an Interpol arrest warrant to detain a German writer in Spain, telling an election town hall event on Sunday that this amounted to abuse of the international police agency.

Dogan Akhanli was stopped in Spain on Saturday after Ankara issued a “red notice”. The German-Turkish writer was released on Sunday but must remain in Madrid while Spain assesses Turkey’s extradition request.

“It is not right and I’m very glad that Spain has now released him,” Merkel said. “We must not misuse international organisations like Interpol for such purposes.”

Relations between Turkey and the European Union have been under growing strain since last year’s failed military coup in Turkey. European-Turkish nationals are among the 50,000 people detained since then in what critics condemn as an indiscriminate crackdown by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Merkel has been more muted in her criticism of Erdogan than other German politicians, with critics charging her with being beholden to Erdogan because of Turkey’s role as a buffer against a renewed flood of Syrian war refugees arriving in Europe.

“(Dogan’s) is one of many cases, unfortunately,” Merkel said, in a sharpening of her tone toward Ankara. “That’s why we have massively changed our Turkish policy recently … because it’s quite unacceptable that Erdogan does this.”

On Saturday Erdogan urged Turks in Germany to “teach a lesson” to Germany’s “anti-Turkish” mainstream parties in next month’s parliamentary election, despite German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s warning he should keep out of German politics.

“Who are you to talk to the president of Turkey? Talk to Turkey’s foreign minister. Know your place,” Erdogan said at a rally for his AK Party in the southwestern province of Denizli.

European countries with large Turkish diasporas have grown increasingly uneasy at what they see as Ankara’s attempts to use ethnic Turkish populations to influence domestic politics.

“President Erdogan is trying to instrumentalise ethnic Turkish communities, especially in German and Austria,” Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz told Die Welt newspaper. “He polarises and brings Turkish conflicts into the EU.”

The final days before elections in the Netherlands this year were overshadowed by violent protests by local affiliates of Erdogan’s party. German security officials have expressed concern about a possible repetition in Germany.

Interpol did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Merkel’s remarks.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt in Berlin and Daren Butler in Istanbul; Editing by Jon Boyle and Sandra Maler)

German critic of Turkey’s Erdogan arrested in Spain

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters in Trabzon, Turkey, August 8, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

BERLIN (Reuters) – German-Turkish author Dogan Akhanli was arrested in Spain on Saturday after Turkey issued an Interpol warrant for the writer, a critic of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

The arrest of the German national was part of a “targeted hunt against critics of the Turkish government living abroad in Europe,” Akhanli’s lawyer Ilias Uyar told the magazine.

Ties between Ankara and Berlin have been increasingly strained in the aftermath of last year’s failed coup in Turkey as Turkish authorities have sacked or suspended 150,000 people and detained more than 50,000, including other German nationals.

Spanish police arrested Akhanli on Saturday in the city of Granada, Der Spiegel reported. Any country can issue an Interpol “red notice”, but extradition by Spain would only follow if Ankara could convince Spanish courts it had a real case against him.

Akhanli, detained in the 1980s and 1990s in Turkey for opposition activities, including running a leftist newspaper, fled Turkey in 1991 and has lived and worked in the German city of Cologne since 1995.

On Friday, Erdogan urged the three million or so people of Turkish background living in Germany to “teach a lesson” to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats in September’s general election by voting against her. That drew stinging rebukes from across the German political spectrum.

Calls to the German foreign ministry regarding the arrest of Akhanli were not immediately returned.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Erdogan tells Turks in Germany to vote against Merkel

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets the audience during a ceremony to mark the 16th anniversary of his ruling AK Party's foundation in Ankara, Turkey, August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Bulent Usta

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats were enemies of Turkey and called on Turks in Germany to vote against major parties in next month’s elections.

The comments are some of Erdogan’s harshest yet against Merkel and her Christian Democrats, illustrating the widening divide between the NATO allies and major trade partners.

Ties between Ankara and Berlin have been strained in the aftermath of last year’s failed coup as Turkish authorities have sacked or suspended 150,000 people and detained more than 50,000 people, including German nationals.

Germany has voiced concern that Erdogan is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. Erdogan, an authoritarian leader whose roots are in political Islam, has accused Germany of anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim sentiment.

“I am calling on all my countrymen in Germany: the Christian Democrats, SDP, the Green Party are all enemies of Turkey. Support those political parties who are not enemies of Turkey,” he said in comments after Friday prayers in Istanbul.

“I call on them not to vote for those parties who have been engaged in such aggressive, disrespectful attitudes against Turkey, and I invite them to teach a lesson to those political parties at the ballot box,” he said.

Germany has a large Turkish diaspora and it contains a broad range of opinion on Turkish politics.

Germans go to the polls on Sept. 24 for elections where Merkel is running for a fourth term. Her conservatives enjoy a comfortable lead over the Social Democrats (SPD), their current coalition partner and major rival.

As a result, Erdogan’s comments are unlikely to sway the election’s outcome.

Western governments, particularly Germany, have expressed apprehension at Erdogan’s tightening grip on power. In April, Turks narrowly backed a referendum to change the constitution and grant Erdogan sweeping executive powers.

In the run-up to the referendum, German authorities prevented Turkish politicians from speaking to rallies of Turkish citizens in Germany, infuriating Ankara.

Turkey also blocked Berlin lawmakers from visiting their troops stationed in southern Turkey. The troops were later relocated to Jordan.

Merkel has also said there would be no expansion of a customs union or deepening in EU-Turkish ties, comments which infuriated Turkey.

Erdogan on Friday said Merkel’s remarks on the customs union showed Germany had become a country that violates the European Union’s acquis, or body of law.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Turkey asks Germany to extradite coup suspect: foreign minister

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaks during a news conference after an extraordinary meeting of the OIC Executive Committee in Istanbul, Turkey, August 1, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has asked Germany to extradite a theology lecturer suspected of playing a major role in last year’s failed coup, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.

Turkey sent a diplomatic note requesting the extradition of Adil Oksuz, who the government says was the “imam” of air force personnel who last year bombed parliament as part of the attempt to topple the government.

Authorities say Oksuz was detained near an Ankara air base hours after the coup attempt, only to be released by a judge two days later and has been on the run since. Turkish media have reported that he has been spotted in Frankfurt and Ulm and given a temporary residence permit by Germany’s Baden-Wurttemberg state.

“We sent a diplomatic note to Germany after the news regarding the presence in Germany of the FETO suspect Adil Oksuz, who is currently at large,” Cavusoglu told broadcaster TRT Haber in an interview.

FETO is the government’s label for supporters of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who authorities say was behind the coup attempt.

Video footage released after the coup attempt showed Oksuz and businessman Kemal Batmaz, another alleged ringleader in the coup attempt, arriving at Istanbul’s main airport two days before the attempted putsch.

Authorities say the men were returning from a visit to the United States where they allegedly met Gulen. The cleric, who denies involvement in the attempted putsch and has condemned it, has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Batmaz remains in detention after his arrest in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup.

More than 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000 have been suspended in the crackdown that following the attempt. Journalists and opposition figures have also been targeted.

The scale of the crackdown has strained ties with some of Turkey’s allies, such as Germany, which have voiced concern that President Tayyip Erdogan may be using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent.

Ankara says such measures are justified by the threat to democracy now posed by Gulen, a former Erdogan supporter. More than 240 people were killed in the coup, most of them civilians.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Dirimcan Barut; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Turkey’s Erdogan claims Germany abetting terrorists

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting of his ruling AK Party in Rize, Turkey, August 7, 2017. Picture taken August 7, 2017. The party banner in the background reads that: "Together with new targets". Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan accused Germany on Monday of assisting terrorists by not responding to thousands of files sent to Berlin or handing over suspects wanted by Turkish authorities.

“Germany is abetting terrorists,” Erdogan told a conference in the Black Sea province of Rize, in comments likely to further escalate tensions between the two countries.

“We gave (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel 4,500 dossiers, but have not received an answer on a single one of them,” he told members of his ruling AK Party.

“When there is a terrorist, they can tell us to give that person back. You won’t send the ones you have to us, but can ask us for yours. So you have a judiciary, but we don’t in Turkey?” he said.

In Berlin, a German government source rejected Erdogan’s latest remarks.

“Everything has really been said about this,” said the source. “Repeating the same accusations over and over again does not make them any more true.”

Already tense relations deteriorated further last month after Turkey arrested 10 rights activists, including a German, as part of a wider security crackdown.

A Turkish prosecutor has accused them of links to the network of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for a failed coup in July 2016. The U.S.-based Gulen denies any involvement.

Turkey accuses Germany of sheltering Kurdish and far-leftist militants as well as military officers and other people linked to the abortive coup. Berlin denies the accusations.

Tensions between Berlin and Ankara were already running high after the arrest of a Turkish-German journalist and Turkey’s refusal to allow German lawmakers to visit troops at a Turkish air base.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by David Dolan and Andrew Bolton)

‘No more waiting!’ Syrians stuck in Greece protest at German embassy

Syrian refugee children hold banners and shout during a demonstration against delays in reunifications of refugee families from Greece to Germany, in Athens, Greece, August 2, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

ATHENS (Reuters) – Syrian refugees stranded in Greece chanted “no more waiting!” and protested outside the German embassy in Athens on Wednesday against delays in reuniting with their relatives in Germany.

About 100 people, among them young children, marched from parliament to the embassy holding up cardboard banners in English reading “I want my family” and shouting slogans about travel to Germany.

Greek media have reported that Greece and Germany have informally agreed to slow down refugee reunification, stranding families in Greece for months after they fled Syria’s civil war.

About 60,000 refugees and migrants, mostly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, have been in Greece for over a year after border closures in the Balkans halted the onward journey many planned to take to central and western Europe.

“My message is ‘enough waiting, enough suffering’,” said 41-year-old Syrian Malak Rahmoun, who lives in a Greek camp with her three daughters while her husband and son are in Berlin. “I feel my heart (is) miserable,” she said.

Rahmoun said she and her daughter applied for family reunification last year but that the Greek authorities have not given a clear reply.

A deal between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016 slowed the flow of people crossing to Greece but about 100 a day continue to arrive on Greek islands.

Nearly 11,000 refugees and migrants have crossed to Greece from Turkey this year, down from 173,000 in 2016 and a fraction of the nearly 1 million arrivals in 2015.

Most of the new arrivals this year are women and children, according to United Nations data. In earlier years, men were the first to flee to Europe, leaving other family members to follow.

“I’ve never seen my son (in) two years,” Rahmoun said.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris)

Hamburg attacker was known to security forces as Islamist: minister

Security forces and ambulances are seen after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen

HAMBURG (Reuters) – The migrant who killed one person and injured six others in a knife attack in a Hamburg supermarket on Friday was an Islamist known to German security forces, who say they believed he posed no immediate threat, the city-state’s interior minister said on Saturday.

A possible security lapse in a second deadly militant attack in less than a year, and two months before the general election, would be highly embarrassing for German intelligence, especially since security is a main theme in the Sept. 24 vote.

A Tunisian failed asylum seeker killed 12 people by driving a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December, slipping through the net after intelligence officers who had monitored him reached the conclusion he was no threat.

Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote told a news conference on Saturday that Friday’s 26-year-old attacker was registered in intelligence systems as an Islamist but not as a jihadist, as there was no evidence to link him to an imminent attack.

He also said the attacker, a Palestinian asylum seeker who could not be deported as he lacked identification documents, was psychologically unstable.

The Palestinian mission in Berlin had agreed to issue him with documents and he had agreed to leave Germany once these were ready, a process that takes a few months.

“What we can say of the motive of the attacker at the moment is that on the one side there are indications that he acted based on religious Islamist motives, and on the other hand there are indications of psychological instability,” Grote said.

“The attacker was known to security forces. There was information that he had been radicalized,” he said.

“As far as we know … there were no grounds to assess him as an immediate danger. He was a suspected Islamist and was recorded as such in the appropriate systems, not as a jihadist but as an Islamist.”

Prosecutors said the attacker pulled a 20-centimetre knife from a shelf at the supermarket and stabbed three people inside and four outside before passers-by threw chairs and other objects at him, allowing police to arrest him.

A 50-year-old man died of his injuries. None of the other six people injured in the attack is in a life-threatening condition.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term in office in September. Her decision in 2015 to open Germany’s doors to more than one million migrants has sparked a debate about the need to spend more on policing and security.

Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, who could not be deported because he lacked identification documents, carried out his attack at a Christmas market in Berlin in December after security agencies stopped monitoring him because they could not prove suspicions that he was planning to purchase weapons.

(Reporting by Frank Witte in Hamburg; Writing by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Editing by Andrew Bolton)