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APA, Azerbaijan
March 17 2012
Turkish PM cancels German trip, protests go ahead
[ 17 Mar 2012 23:18 ]
Baku-APA. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a trip to
Germany on Saturday after the death of 12 Turkish soldiers in
Afghanistan, but thousands of protesters went ahead with a rally
against a decision to award him a tolerance prize quoting Reuters.
Erdogan had been due to receive the Steiger Award in the western
German town of Bochum but his office said he had called off his trip
because of the soldiers' deaths in a NATO helicopter crash near Kabul
on Friday.
Despite the cancellation, an estimated 22,000 people from local Alevi,
Kurdish and Armenian groups who oppose the policies of Erdogan's AK
party joined a pre-planned protest rally in Bochum in the industrial
Ruhr region.
"Erdogan - wolf in sheep's clothing," read one banner. "Erdogan, you
are and remain an anti-democrat," read another.
"We are foreigners here (in Germany) and in our own land too we are
foreigners. We don't know where to go, we Kurds and
Alevis," said one protester, Serpil Aydogan.
The Steiger Award association said the award was intended to mark 50
years of German-Turkish friendship.
March 17 2012
Turkish PM cancels German trip, protests go ahead
[ 17 Mar 2012 23:18 ]
Baku-APA. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a trip to
Germany on Saturday after the death of 12 Turkish soldiers in
Afghanistan, but thousands of protesters went ahead with a rally
against a decision to award him a tolerance prize quoting Reuters.
Erdogan had been due to receive the Steiger Award in the western
German town of Bochum but his office said he had called off his trip
because of the soldiers' deaths in a NATO helicopter crash near Kabul
on Friday.
Despite the cancellation, an estimated 22,000 people from local Alevi,
Kurdish and Armenian groups who oppose the policies of Erdogan's AK
party joined a pre-planned protest rally in Bochum in the industrial
Ruhr region.
"Erdogan - wolf in sheep's clothing," read one banner. "Erdogan, you
are and remain an anti-democrat," read another.
"We are foreigners here (in Germany) and in our own land too we are
foreigners. We don't know where to go, we Kurds and
Alevis," said one protester, Serpil Aydogan.
The Steiger Award association said the award was intended to mark 50
years of German-Turkish friendship.