Not investigating German companies on suspicion of terrorism: Turkey

Mehmet Simsek underlined that Turkey had left behind a difficult period after the defeated coup attempt last year, and Turkish economy was performing well at the moment.

Ankara: Turkey`s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek has assured that political disagreements between Ankara and Berlin would not adversely affect German companies investments in Turkey.

Referring to the German media reports last week, which claimed that hundreds of German companies, were investigated by Turkish authorities on suspicion of supporting a terrorist organisation, Simsek stressed that no German firms were being probed by Turkish investigators, as part of ongoing probes into the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO, which the Erdogan government has accused of organizing the attempted military takeover last year.

Simsek underlined that Turkey had left behind a difficult period after the defeated coup attempt last year, and Turkish economy was performing well at the moment."I can assure the business community.Turkey remains an open, liberal and investment-friendly country," he said.

"When I saw reports in the media about a list of companies, I immediately called the interior and justice ministers," Anadolu news agency quoted Simsek as saying.

"Both ministers assured me that there has been no investigation against a single German company on suspicion of terrorism financing," he said.

Simsek said that the Turkish authorities had requested relevant information from all countries via Interpol, as part of their investigation into the international business ties of local firms owned by people linked to FETO.

He stressed that foreign companies were not the focus of the anti-terrorism investigation, he said,"In the list, there were 9800 companies, not only from Germany, but from more than 50 countries.