German Foreign Minister Says Germany Will Not Stop Selling Weapons To Turkey Despite Appeals From Greece And Human-Rights Groups

Germany has refused to stop selling weapons to Turkey despite pleas from Greece and human-rights groups. The call to end arms sales to Turkey comes on the back of several years of expansionist and aggressive foreign policy by Turkey under the leadership of Recep Erdogan and the dismantling of democracy within the country.

Germany'sGermany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas responded to calls to end arms sales to Turkey by stating that it would not be in Germany's Germany's strategic interests, in part because Turkey remains within the NATO strategic alliance.

Maas stated:

"I do not find the demand of an arms embargo against Turkey strategically correct. It is not easy to do this against a NATO partner. We saw that NATO ally Turkey easily bought missiles from Russia because it could not buy from the U.S."

The argument from the German Foreign Ministry is that, if Turkey no longer gains weapons from the West, it will instead gain weapons from Russia and move out of the Western sphere of influence. It has already been seen that when the United States refused to sell the patriot missile system to Turkey, the Turkish state instead purchased the S-400 missile system from Russia.

Greece has made several attempts already to encourage the halting of arms to Turkey, the most recent of which involved the Greek Foreign Minister meeting with the German President and the European Affairs Committee in an attempt to stop the sale of Type 214 submarines from Europe to Turkey.

Both Greece and Cyprus are particularly worried about Turkish maritime capabilities as within the last year, there have been continued attempts by Turkish naval forces to gain access to hydrocarbon deposits in the Eastern-Mediterranean. Many of these deposits lie within Greek and Cypriot territorial waters.

The expansionist policy within the Mediterranean is just one of a whole range of issues that Turkey has been involved in within the last few years. Other issues include the arming of Islamist extremist groups in both the Syrian and Libyan civil-wars, and more recently, the arming of Azerbaijan and the supplying of Islamist mercenaries to the conflict in Artsakh, known officially as Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey also invaded the Kurdish controlled northern region of Syria in 2019 in total violation of international law. During the occupation, it was widely reported that Turkey intentionally cut off water and food supplies to the Kurdish civilian population. Domestically, political opponents and journalists who have spoken out against the Turkish regime have been arrested and imprisoned as Erdogan has sought to move Turkey away from its secular roots and create an Islamist society. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other country.