Two days, two speeches, two faces: On Tuesday, at his official appearance at the Refugee Forum in Geneva, Recep Tayyip gave Erdogan the diplomatic head of state. In front of dozens of TV cameras, he asked the international community for more support for Turkey. Quite different the day before. There the Turkish ruler stepped in front of his supporters in the noble hotel Four Seasons and held – shielded from the public – a propaganda speech against the assimilation of the Turkish people.The newspaper SonntagsBlick holds a video of the speech. A conference hall with almost 200 people, white tablecloths, silver cutlery. And on the podium: Erdogan, who conjures up his fantasies of a great power among the Swiss-Turks present.While Swiss policemen patrol the hotel with machine guns, the Turkish autocrat inside is talking in a frenzy: “One nation, one flag, one home, one state. This is how we will continue!” Applause. Erdogan makes it clear to those present: Even if they lived in Switzerland, they have only one nation to be loyal to: Turkey. The President of the Republic extends his hand into the air, four fingers outstretched, his thumb bent – the “Rabia greeting”, the distinctive mark of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan goes even further: There is only one state for the Turkish Diaspora to follow. But the task in Switzerland is to expand their influence: “Become active, in politics, science, the economy! In other words, infiltrate Swiss society. Loyal Turks living abroad have always been Erdogan’s aim. Already in 2008 he called out to his compatriots in a speech: “No one can expect you to submit to assimilation. Assimilation is a crime against humanity!”To keep the Turkish diaspora on track, in 2010 Erdogan founded the Ministry of Foreign Turks (YTB), an authority with 300 employees and an annual budget of almost 200 million Swiss francs. The official slogan of the YTB: “We are everywhere where we have a national, a conspecific, a relative”. So it is not surprising that Erdogan’s propaganda appearance in Geneva was organized and probably financed by that very ministry. Murat Sahin from Aargau, Erdogan’s extended arm in Switzerland, acted as liaison man in the background.Sahin is a long-standing president of the Union of International Democrats, a lobby organisation of the Turkish ruling party AKP. He maintains close relations with the Ankara apparatus of power. On Facebook he swore unconditional loyalty to Erdogan: “As long as I can breathe, I will stand with all my being where you command me and fight together with you on this path! Sahin was rewarded for his services to the Turkish government in Geneva: he was one of the few chosen ones who were allowed to sit at the table with the Turkish ruler and his wife personally during the dinner at the Hotel Four Seasons. The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu and the Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar dined at the same table. Akar had ordered the attack on the Kurds in northern Syria in autumn. 

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