Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will go to Germany for the G-20 Summit to be held on July 7-8. The President wanted to hold rallies with his supporters in different cities, but it seems he will be disappointed: Large scale venues in Dortmund, Oberhausen, Cologne and Gelsenkirche have turned Erdoğan down.

Germany and many other European countries didn’t allow the Erdoğan regime to hold rallies for the referendum held on April 16, 2017. In Germany’s Gaggenau, the rally Turkish Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ would speak in was banned, then several Turkish ministers were barred from visiting Europe.

It will be the first time Turkish President Erdoğan visits Germany after these bans. AKP members in Germany have already started to apply in many cities so Erdoğan can hold rallies with his supporters after the G-20 Summit in Hamburg.

COLOGNE ARENA: “WE DON’T HAVE SPACE FOR ERDOĞAN”

Up to date, Dortmund, Oberhausen, Cologne and Gelsenkirche have refused to book their venues for the AKP. Authorities in Westfalenhalle venue in Dortmund said: “They applied to hold a meeting on July 9 that Erdoğan will attend, but we are closed on that day for preparations for another event.”

Cologne Arena venue manager Stefan Löcher spoke to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper and said: “The Turkish side made an appeal for Erdoğan, but right now we don’t have space to allocate to Erdoğan.”

In Düsseldorf, ISS-Dome venue official Julia Kaballo said the reservation from Turkey for July 9 was refused due to renovation work scheduled in the venue. Erdoğan had held another rally with his supporters in this venue on 2011.

GERMANY AVENGES İNCİRLİK

The German Foreign Minister stated that they received no official request from Ankara regarding the rally Erdoğan wants to hold. Turkey’s Berlin Embassy issued a similar statement.

But according to comments in the German media, Erdoğan supporters have been applying for venues insistently for the last couple of days. Germany not allocating space for the rallies is seen as “avenging İncirlik”, because recently the Erdoğan regime didn’t allow German parliamentarians to visit the German soldiers in İncirlik and that incident turned into a crisis between the two countries.

Erdoğan gave his most current speech in Germany with the title “President” in May 2015 in Karlsruhe. Erdoğan wasn’t allowed to connect via videoconference to the AKP rally held in Cologne in July 2016. When Germany didn’t allow AKP rallies before the April 16 referendum, Erdoğan called the German administration “Nazis” and various other insults.