Turkey, Germany reach consensus to revive cooperation mechanisms, says Erdoğan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday stated that Turkey and Germany had reached a consensus to revive cooperation mechanisms between the two countries.

Erdoğan is on a three-day state visit to Germany and will meet Chancellor Angela Merkel three times.

Relations between the two countries have been badly strained in recent months.

Erdoğan also called on Berlin to extradite supporters of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) residing in Germany, the group behind the defeated 2016 coup in Turkey.

He also urged Germany to designate the network of FETÖ as a terror group.

Chancellor Merkel responded by saying that Germany needed more information in order to classify it as a terror group.

"We take very seriously the evidence Turkey provided but we need more material if we are to classify it in the same way we have classified the PKK," she said.

FETÖ terrorists are led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gülen, who orchestrated Turkey's July 15 coup attempt and is the mastermind behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

Since the failed coup, operations have been ongoing in the military, police and judiciary as well as in state institutions across the country to arrest suspects with alleged links to FETÖ.

Describing Can Dündar, a Turkish journalist who had been convicted of espionage, as an agent, "This person is a convicted criminal according to Turkish law," Erdogan said.

In May, 2016, the 14th High Criminal Court in Istanbul had convicted Can Dündar, the former editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet daily, following the publication of images purporting to show arms being transported to Syria in trucks belonging to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, also known as the MIT.

Merkel said that she agreed with Erdoğan to aim for holding a four-way meeting in October to discuss the situation of the opposition-held Syrian region of Idlib.

"We also talked about Idlib and we will talk in more depth tomorrow. We are in favour of there being a four way meeting between the Turkish president, the Russian president, the French president and me," Merkel said.