German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met with the co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Mithat Sancar, in Ankara on Saturday. HDP MP Şevin Coşkun and Feleknas Uca, HDP foreign policy spokesperson, as well as other members of the German delegation also took part in the talks.

According to the HDP, the discussion lasted a good half hour. The topics discussed were the ongoing proceedings to ban the HDP, the so-called "Kobanê trial", the imprisoned HDP politicians, the Turkish military operation in northern Iraq and the Turkish government's threat to occupy further parts of northern Syria.

Sancar emphasised in the interview that all problem areas result from the refusal of a political solution to the Kurdish question. As long as the Kurdish question is not solved, there is no end in sight to the Turkish government's war policy, said the HDP co-chair, according to whom, the "security concerns" cited by the government as justification for cross-border military operations are untenable and rather serve as a means against the inexorable loss of power in domestic politics. In this respect, Mithat Sancar told Baerbock that it is important that the German foreign policy is based on democratic values and strives for regional and global peace.

Annalena Baerbock met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Istanbul on Friday and spoke out against a further invasion of northern Syria by the Turkish state at a joint press conference. Talks with the opposition, women's rights activists and refugees are taking place in Ankara today.