Erdoğan to pay first official visit to Germany in 7 years

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will travel to Germany tomorrow on a first official visit to the country in more than seven years.

His two-day visit comes following an invitation from the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Erdoğan will fly to Germany after attending the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York, a presidential statement said yesterday.

During his visit, the president is expected to meet Steinmeier and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The meetings will likely discuss political, economic, cultural, social, security and defense-related issues. Turks living in Germany will be another major topic of the meetings.

Regional and global developments, particularly Syria; cooperation in the fight against terrorism and irregular migration as well as the Turkey-EU relations will also be discussed.

The president will also come together with the heads of civil society organizations and leading German firms at the Turkey-Germany Business Council, which is part of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK)

Erdoğan will also attend the opening ceremony of the Cologne Central Mosque, built by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB) and meet the Turks living there.

The statement from the Turkish presidency added that: "Germany is a NATO ally of Turkey and one of its leading economic partners. Some 3.5 million people of Turkish-origin live in Germany, constituting another bond between the two countries."

Many Turks in Germany are second and third-generation German-born citizens, whose Turkish grandparents had moved to the country during the 1960s. However, Turkey-Germany relations have been strained of late - mainly due to Germany's reluctance to take Turkey's concerns over terrorist organizations, particularly the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), seriously.

Ankara has long accused Berlin of failing to take serious measures against the PKK terror group 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.