ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday that Ankara and Berlin are on the way to normalize bilateral relations.
"We must fight together against xenophobia, which is recently increasing, and our hopes are growing, our relations are normalizing and strengthening," Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
In turn, Maas said that Turkey was more than a neighbor for Germany, as the latter was home for about 3 million Turks.
"We have close economic relations, we are allies in NATO, we need to be in close cooperation and improve relations. We have common strategic interests," he said.
Relations between Berlin and Ankara deteriorated following the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016. Ankara has accused Berlin of providing asylum to the coup plotters, while Berlin, in turn, has strongly criticized the detention of German journalists and human rights activists in Turkey. Another issue that undermined bilateral relations was Berlin's ban on campaign rallies in Germany ahead of Turkey's constitutional referendum in 2017.
