MOSCOW (Sputnik) — German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier refuted on Tuesday allegations by his Turkish counterpart that Germany backed the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
"I read today that my Turkish colleague accused Germany of somehow supporting the PKK. I think even Ankara knows that the opposite is true," Steinmeier said in a statement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed earlier in the day that Berlin allowed the PKK, a leftist militant group that seeks to create a Kurdish state in Turkish territories, to operate within Germany.
The German foreign minister reminded Cavusoglu that PKK and other extremist Turkish parties were outlawed in Germany as terrorist organizations.
