One day before jetting off to Germany for a major diplomatic visit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged the two countries to hit the reset button on their tricky relations.
Erdoğan said he wants to turn over a "new page" in Germany and Turkey's strained diplomatic ties in comments to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper seen by German Press Agency on Wednesday.
"It is our responsibility to rationally move our relations forward on the basis of our shared interests, quite apart from irrational fears," the Turkish president wrote in the FAZ op-ed entitled "Expectations of Germany."
Erdoğan is due to touch down in Berlin on Thursday afternoon, and is expected to push for a rapprochement with Germany - along with other European countries - amid a row with the United States that has targeted the country's economic stability.
The Turkish president wrote in FAZ that he expects Germany's backing in his fight against the terrorist PKK, as well as the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), who was behind the 2016 failed coup attempt.
He also warned against the growing strength of right-wing extremism and Islamophobia in Germany and Europe.
"At times Islamophobia is also the biggest hurdle in Turkey's EU accession negotiations," he added.
Ankara has long accused Berlin of failing to take serious measures against the PKK and its Syrian affiliate the People's Protection Units (YPG), which use the country as a platform for fund-raising, recruitment and propaganda activities. Similar to the PKK, FETÖ is also widely tolerated in Germany, where about 14,000 of the group's members have fled following the July 15, 2016, failed coup attempt in Turkey.
