Turkish footballer Demiral’s grey wolf salute strains relations between Germany and Türkiye

A footballer’s gesture to celebrate one of his goals in Turkey’s victory over Austria last Tuesday has triggered a series of diplomatic frictions between Ankara and Berlin that could escalate with the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the German capital on Saturday. Olaf Scholz’s government has summoned the Turkish ambassador in protest against the so-called grey wolf salute, a gesture associated with ultra-nationalist and far-right groups in Turkey, made by footballer Merih Demiral. Ankara had done the same with the German ambassador after several German ministers criticised Demiral.

After it became known that the German Foreign Ministry, headed by the Green Party member Annalena Baerbock, had summoned the Turkish ambassador, it has emerged that Erdogan has changed his schedule to be in Berlin on Saturday to attend the quarter-final match of the European Championship between the Turkish national team and the Netherlands. The president had planned to attend a summit in Azerbaijan, to which he will finally send his vice president, Cevdet Yilmaz, according to reports. media like the Turkish Hürriyet.

UEFA, the tournament’s organisers, is investigating Demiral’s gesture as “inappropriate behaviour”, but in Berlin, ministers in Olaf Scholz’s coalition government have gone further and publicly criticised the footballer. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that “using the Euros as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable”. “Symbols of the Turkish far right have no place in our stadiums,” she added. a message on social network X.

Ankara has defended the Turkish player and described Berlin’s reaction as “xenophobic”, raising the temperature of a conflict between two close partners – both belong to NATO – who also share a history of very tense moments. Germany has the largest Turkish diaspora, with three million people. In recent years there have been several clashes between the two governments, the most recent being Erdogan’s words after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. The president maintained a radically opposite position to Berlin’s, considering Israel “a terrorist state” and accusing it of carrying out a “genocide” with the “unlimited” support of the West. The imprisonment of German citizens in Turkey or the Nazi comparisons used by the Turkish president during Angela Merkel’s time are among the most contentious points between the two nations.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has defended Demiral, saying that the gesture he made was a historical and cultural symbol, made during a joyful moment of celebration, and was not directed against anyone. Ankara has also pointed out that the symbol is not banned in Germany and that Berlin’s reaction is therefore exaggerated. It has also described the investigation launched by UEFA as “unacceptable”.

The player himself has also denied that there was any kind of “hidden message” in the so-called wolf salute, a symbol of the Grey Wolves, a nationalist and far-right movement created in the 1970s in Turkey. Despite the criticism, Demiral, 26 years old and a player for Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahli, says he does not regret having made the gesture. “The way I celebrated it has to do with my Turkish identity,” he said before stressing that he only intended to express the pride he feels for being a Turkish citizen. After the controversy broke out, he posted on his X account a photo of him making the gesture and the message “how happy is he who claims to be Turkish.”

“It symbolizes terror and fascism”

“It is true, there is nothing hidden in the wolf salute,” replied the German Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, son of Turkish immigrants. “Its message is far-right, it symbolises terror and fascism. It is tiring to argue about this. UEFA must take action,” he added. in your X accountKurdish activist Düzen Tekkal has reported that she has been receiving death threats from grey wolves for years and has described Demiral’s gesture as an insult. “The wolf salute is not an innocent gesture. It represents the desire to annihilate Armenians, Kurds, Alevis, Greeks, Yazidis and Jews. Grey wolves should be banned in Germany,” has added.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic secret service, says anti-Semitism and racism are central elements of the Grey Wolves’ far-right ideology. “Hostility towards Jews, the denial of Israel’s right to exist, the dissemination of anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy narratives are also widespread among Turkish right-wing extremists in Germany,” the office said in a statement. its latest annual reportcorresponding to 2023, which estimates that there are around 12,500 followers of this ideology living in the country. The secret services of some German states, as North Rhine-Westphaliathey monitor supporters of this movement as suspected of extremism.

Erdogan has not made any public comments on the news, but his reaction has been to announce that he will attend Saturday’s quarter-final match to support the Turkish team. The match will be played at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, a city that concentrates a large part of the Turkish diaspora that settled there since the 1960s with the emigration of workers to German industries. Around 250,000 people with Turkish nationality or descent live in the capital, concentrated in neighbourhoods such as Kreuzberg, known as “little Istanbul”.

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