A deputy chair of Turkey’s far-right Patriotic Party (VP) has denied accusations that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is racist or hostile to Turks and Muslims, saying Turkish associates of his party have joined the AfD.
Descriptions of the AfD as fascist, racist or hostile to Islam were lies spread by “globalists” seeking to turn Asian nations against the party, Ethem Sancak said in remarks published Thursday by the T24 news website.
“Some of our friends have joined the AfD,” Sancak said, referring to members of Germany’s Turkish community.
Some of them may secure posts in the party because the VP and the AfD have “very good relations,” he added.
The comments came days after the AfD won 43.8 percent of the vote and 39 of 83 seats in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The party fell three seats short of a majority and is seeking allies, while Germany’s mainstream parties have maintained their refusal to work with it.
The AfD campaigned on broader deportations, renewed ties with Russia, an end to German support for Ukraine and Germany’s withdrawal from the eurozone.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz accused the party of promoting “ethnic cleansing” through its “remigration” policy, while the AfD said its proposals concerned only people without legal residence.
The AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch has been designated as a confirmed right-wing extremist group by the state’s domestic intelligence agency since 2023.
Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency made the same finding about the party nationwide in 2025, but a Cologne court blocked the designation in February pending a final ruling.
The Turkish community in Germany warned after the election that the AfD’s rise could fuel violence against migrants and members of religious and other minority groups.
Sancak is a businessman who served on the top decision-making body of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) before resigning in 2022 and joining the VP, which advocates closer ties with Russia and Turkey’s withdrawal from NATO.
