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The approved exports include €79.7 million in war weapons and €151.1 million in other military equipment, the ministry said in response to a query from a lawmaker of the populist BSW party made available to dpa. The last time this level of exports was sent from Germany to Turkey was in 2006.
German armaments deliveries to Turkey, a NATO member, have been controversial in recent years due to concerns about human rights conditions in Turkey and some of the Turkish government’s international actions.
Following a failed coup in Turkey, and Turkey’s military ground offensive in northern Syria in 2016, German export permits to Ankara were reduced significantly.
Germany had previously been a large-scale armaments supplier to Turkey, but in recent years, German weapons exports to Turkey have been as low as the single-digit-million range.
However, the newly released figures suggest a shift in policy. In September, the German Economy Ministry, headed by Robert Habeck, a Green party member, said it had approved the delivery of torpedoes, guided missiles, and submarine components to Turkey in larger quantities.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, defended these deliveries during a visit to Istanbul in October. “Turkey is a member of NATO and that is why we always make decisions that there will be concrete deliveries. That is a matter of course,” Scholz said.
Scholz even appeared open to the potential delivery of Eurofighter jets to Turkey. The chancellor said talks between the United Kingdom and Turkey about the fighter jets were ongoing.
BSW politician Sevim Dagdelen criticized the increase in export approvals, calling it a “fatal signal” in light of Ankara’s ongoing attacks against Iraq and Syria.
The BSW, the German acronym for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, named after the former doyenne of the hard left, is a mix of pro-Russian views, an anti-immigration stance found on the far-right and sceptism about Green politics.
