Turkey Holds Germans Like Hostages

The Turkish government imprisons Germans to put pressure on the Federal Republic to deliver Turks in Germany to Ankara.

President Erdogan would have offered a couple of weeks ago to exchange German journalist Deniz Yücel against two high Turkish officers who fled to Germany after attempting a coup last year in Turkey. In connection with the coup attempt, 22 Germans were arrested in Turkey, nine of whom were still in the cell.

On Thursday, Ankara has a German demand for the release of a group of human rights activists, including a German, as an unacceptable interference in cases involving only Turkey. The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel broke down on the North Sea in Berlin to take the next step in the German-Turkish crisis on Thursday.