Germany drops economic sanctions against Turkey
Move comes after Ankara ended its two-year state of emergency.
Germany has lifted economic sanctions on Turkey and relaxed its travel advice to the country, German officials said, after Ankara ended its two-year state of emergency.
A 1.5 billion-euro ($1.7bn) limit on export guarantees to Turkey would not be renewed this year, Germany’s economy ministry told the AFP news agency, confirming an earlier report by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The measure was imposed in July 2017 as a way to pressure Ankara after the detention of a German human rights campaigner and five other activists, including the head of Amnesty International in Turkey.
Opposition parties in Germany have accused the 1.5 billion-euro limit of being too timid, given that the value of export guarantees increased from 1.1bn euros in 2016 to 1.46bn euros the following year.
Warning removed
Germany’s foreign ministry also removed a warning on its website that had said German nationals faced a high risk of arrest when visiting Turkey.
Turkey’s state of emergency, which was imposed after a failed 2016 coup and saw the biggest purge of officials in the country’s modern history, came to an end on Thursday.
Turkey’s opposition, however, has accused the government of moving to permanently formalise some of the measure’s harshest aspects.
On Friday, Turkey and the Netherlands agreed to restore relations strained after a diplomatic row last year.