Germany Warns Its Citizens Against Travel to Turkey

Germany is sharpening its policy toward Turkey in response to jailings of journalists and human rights activists. The Foreign Ministry is now warning German citizens that they face risks if they go to Turkey, reported DW.

Germany's foreign minister interrupted his vacation on the North Sea to return to Berlin to deliver the most strongly worded statement yet against Turkey's imprisonment of German journalists and human rights activists.

"We want Turkey to be a part of the West, or at least remain in its current position, but it takes two to tango," Sigmar Gabriel at a press conference in Berlin. "I cannot make out any willingness on the part of the current Turkish government to follow this path with us. For that reason Germany is forced to reorient its Turkey policy. The first consequences will be new travel advisories for German citizens in Turkey."

Gabriel said that Germans traveling to Turkey were incurring "risks," and the ministry website recommended Germans should exercise "heightened caution" when visiting Turkey since "consular access" to Germans detained in Turkey had been "restricted in violation of the obligations of international law."

Gabriel said that the measures were being taken after consulting with both conservative chancellor Angela Merkel and Social Democratic chairman and chancellor candidate Martin Schulz. Although they stopped short of a travel warning against Turkey, they do represent a new level of chill in relations between the two countries.

The re-calibration of Germany's Turkey policy came after a court in Istanbul ordered six human rights activists, including Peter Steudtner from Berlin, to investigative custody on Tuesday. Turkey accuses them of supporting terrorism. Gabriel...