ANKARA (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted on Friday as comparing Turkey with the former communist East German state and saying Berlin might have to tell Germans travelling there that they did so at their own peril.
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Germans on Thursday to exercise caution if travelling to Turkey and threatened steps that could hinder German investment after the NATO ally detained rights activists.
The arrests were part of a broader crackdown across Turkish society since a failed coup last July.
"If Turkey does not stop playing this little game, we need to tell people: 'You travel to Turkey at your own risk - we can't guarantee you anything anymore,'" Schaeuble told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.
Schaeuble compared Turkey to the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), East Germany: "Turkey now makes arbitrary arrests and no longer sticks to minimum consular standards. That reminds me of how it was in the GDR."
In another development, Germany has frozen all arms shipment to Turkey after Ankara arrested several human rights activists, including a German national.
The Bild newspaper reported on Friday that Germany was "freezing all planned and ongoing arms deliveries to Turkey.”
In the months after the July 2016 abortive coup in Turkey against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Germany had already blocked 11 separate arms shipments to Turkey, including handguns, ammunition, and weapons components.
The latest move came after a Turkish court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for six human rights activists for allegedly aiding a "terror” group, among them German citizen Peter Steudtner.
The arrests further strained the already tarnished relations between the two NATO allies.
Relations between Turkey and Germany, which is home to three million ethnic Turks, have been badly strained over what Europeans describe as Turkey’s human rights violations.