ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Germany of being one of the worst countries in the world for harbouring “terrorists”, saying Berlin had not responded to requests to hand over suspects from the July 15 failed coup.

Erdogan said that he had handed German Chancellor Angela Merkel some 4,000 dossiers about suspects in Germany but had received no response in return.

With Merkel on Wednesday calling Turkey’s crackdown on media “highly alarming”, Erdogan said Germany was more interested in voicing concern for the newspapers, which he said “support terror groups”.

Ankara accuses the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen of being behind the coup, saying he leads a group called the Fethullah Terror Group (FETO). Gulen denies the charges.

“You (Germany) are going to be remembered in history for playing host to terror,” Erdogan said in a speech at his presidential palace in Ankara. “We are worried that Germany is turning into FETO’s back garden,” he said, also accusing Germany of playing host to members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the ultra-leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2016