Turkish elections: German intelligence agency warns of Turkish domestic political conflicts spilling over to Germany

BERLIN – The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), has warned against possible influencing by Turkey’s political parties of the sizable Turkish-German community in Germany and signaled that Turkish political conflicts could potentially be fought on German soil. The head of the BfV, the country’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt that it cannot be ruled out that the Turkish elections scheduled for mid-2023 will have an impact in Germany;

“Turkish internal political conflicts are being waged here: on the one hand there are government loyalists, including Turkish nationalists and right-wing extremists, on the other hand there are democratic opposition forces, but also supporters of extremist and terrorist organizations such as the PKK [Ed. the PKK has been banned in Germany since 1993],” Haldenwang told Die Welt.

The BfV indicates that it has already seen the first campaign leaflets in Germany from individual political participants in the upcoming Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003, is seeking re-election next year and is also targeting the millions of citizens with Turkish citizenship in Germany. An estimated five million live in Germany, including Kurds, Syriacs, and Yazidis, and an estimated 1.2 million of them have voting rights. In a letter from his AKP party distributed in German mosques and foundations, the Turkish president asked last year for the support and vote of Turkish-Germans in the upcoming elections.

In Germany, politicians from non-EU countries have been banned since 2017 from making campaign appearances three months before the election date.