Deniz Yücel

Defense Minister Fikri Işık met his German counterpart Ursula Von Der Leyen on June 29 amid dispute between the two nations over the withdrawal of Germany's military deployment in the İncirlik air base in southern Turkey. 

The two ministers came together on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels. 

French photojournalist Mathias Depardon was freed and deported on June 9, after a month of captivity without any official charges. When he was stopped by the police on May 8, Depardon was taking pictures in the Hasankeyf district of the southeastern Anatolian province of Batman on an assignment for National Geographic. 

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Die Welt reporter Deniz Yücel, who is currently in prison in Turkey, was charged with terror not because of journalism. "Just like in Germany, there is an independent judiciary in Turkey. This independent judiciary is conducting the investigation," he said. 

Looking at Turkey's relations with Europe, one has to put Germany aside. Unlike the crisis with Holland, which can be overcome and explained by the heat of elections in both countries, the tension between Turkey and Germany goes deeper. On several foreign policy issues, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the sole decision maker.

Even the pope's request that arrested German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel be pardoned cannot help him, Turkey's ambassador to the Vatican, Mehmet Paçacı, said in an interview with the German Catholic News Agency (KNA) in Rome on May 11.

Ankara needs to ensure the rule of law and establish reliable conditions to facilitate continued investment by German companies in Turkey, a top German official said on May 8, as Turkey and Germany pledged to set aside political tensions and work on further developing economic and trade ties.

EU-Turkey relations have been severely hit by actions taken by the Turkish government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said April 27.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused Germany of abetting terrorists while vowing that he will continue to make "Nazi" comparisons until Berlin hands over thousands of "terror criminals" that Turkey has long been demanding from the country. 

Germany's Foreign Minister thanked his Turkish counterpart on April 3 for granting consular access to a German-Turkish journalist detained since January, the first positive development between the two NATO partners after weeks of acrimony.

Israel has criticized recent comparisons of the current German government to the Nazi regime, implicitly referring to recent comments from Turkish government officials.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told dpa that such comments are "unacceptable."