Hamburg - German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Monday a proposal from Ankara to provide Turkish-trained teachers to educate minority children in German public schools. She said she had rebuffed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan when he made the proposal to her on a visit Friday. Teachers in Germany had to be German-trained.
The row has added a new layer of friction to a relationship strained by Berlin's hostility to Turkey joining the European Union, attacks by Merkel supporters on minority youth crime and disagreements over a tragic fire.
As the nine victims of the February 3 apartment blaze in Ludwigshafen in Germany were buried at home in Turkey, police announced that sniffer dogs had not found any sign of inflammable chemicals in the ruined building.
Many Turks suspect the fire may have been a racist arson attack, citing claims by two girl survivors that they saw a stranger light tapers indoors beforehand.
On Sunday, Erdogan told nearly 20,000 Turks in Cologne that too many of their children entered German schools lacking the German language. They must integrate and learn the language, he said.
But he denounced assimilation, or becoming completely German, as a "crime against humanity."
In Berlin Monday, government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said he was not in a position to comment on that view.
The aim of the German government was to promote integration, Wilhelm said, although he acknowledged intense debate about the precise aims of integration.
"This cannot be dictated by politicians but depends on the daily decisions of hundreds of thousands of people," he said, adding that the role of politicians was to provide a basis for integration to take place.
Speaking in the northern city of Hamburg, Merkel said, "We will have to continue debating our understanding of integration issues with the Turkish prime minister.
"I am pleased he pronounces himself in favour of integration and learning the German language, but long-term life in a country also involves a stronger acceptance of its habits."
Turks had to become citizens "without caveats." "That doesn't mean they can't have their own cultural background, but the loyalty belongs entirely with the German state."
Although private bilingual schools for Turkish children and public secondary schools where all subjects are taught English do exist in Germany, Erdogan's proposal for separate schools prompted an outcry on the left and right.
Erdogan said German-language schools and colleges already existed in Turkey, so the converse was desirable in Germany. He said Ankara could supply the teachers.
Merkel said, "There are already a whole range of German-Turkish secondary schools here, and there is nothing at all to object to about that.
I expressed my objections to Turkish teachers coming to Germany."
The chancellor added, "I'm open about more schools offering Turkish as a second language." But she would reject "a child here going to a Turkish-language school where they learn German as their fifth foreign language."
Merkel's chief of minority affairs, Maria Boehmer, said, "German is the bond. Put them all in the one school."
Members of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have strongly attacked Erdogan, both for seeking a separate education system and for holding a political rally entirely in the Turkish language.
Kurt Beck, leader of Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partner, said Erdogan's ideas "go in the wrong direction." He could consider bilingual classes or religious instruction, but not separate Turkish schools.
A co-leader of the opposition Greens, Reinhard Buetikofer, said those who wanted to attend university in Turkish could go to Turkey.
But the other co-leader, Claudia Roth, said the party did favour bilingual schools. She praised the Erdogan visit, saying the prime minister had calmed the minority after the fire tragedy and had spoken up in favour of integration.
