Burhan Kuzu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Central Decision and Executive Board (MKYK) and an AKP İstanbul deputy, has said Germany was behind the Gezi Park protests of 2013, T24 reported on Saturday.
“Gezi was completely planned by the Germans. They failed, so they tried the Dec.17-25 [corruption operations in 2013 in which the inner circle of the AKP government and then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were implicated]. I think they have a problem with our big infrastructure investments,” said Kuzu, a former adviser of President Erdoğan, during a program on CNNTürk, claiming that Germany was angry about a third airport in Istanbul.
The protests broke out in İstanbul’s Gezi Park in late May 2013 and spread to all except two provinces of Turkey. Eight civilians were killed during the protests that the then-Erdoğan government called an attempt to undermine it.
Upon a question as to why Germany should be jealous about Turkish infrastructure investments, Kuzu said: “I have recently been to Frankfurt airport. It is slowly closing down. It has been weakened due to the third airport in Istanbul.”
Kuzu also claimed that role of Germany and the Netherlands in aviation will end when the third airport in Istanbul is completed.
“When construction started on the third airport [in İstanbul], they [Germany] just went crazy because the Frankfurt airport is about to be closed down. All this has made Germany uncomfortable, and this is the real reason [behind Germany’s refusal to allow the ministers to hold rallies],” Kuzu said in March in reaction to a German decision to not allow Turkish ministers to hold rallies in some German towns for a referendum on April 16.
Kuzu, who is also a professor of constitutional law, has been on the agenda for his sharp comments about foreign policy.
He reacted to a US decision in October to suspend all non-immigrant visa services at its diplomatic missions in Turkey, saying: “Our military walking all over the US in Syria has disturbed the US. A coward dies many times before their death. You will not stop the rise of Turkey.”
Kuzu in late November targeted Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who revealed his tactics and accomplices in the Turkish government in violating US sanctions on Iran in a New York federal court, saying Zarrab could have been an American agent from beginning.
In August Kuzu called on prosecutors to investigate İncirlik Airbase, used by NATO, over Turkey’s botched coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
On the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, Kuzu argued in a tweet that the United States staged 9/11 itself.