The longtime Turkey correspondent Thomas Seibert can report from the country after the dispute over his press accreditation. The government in Ankara has now granted him the accreditation and invited him to return to the country, as the correspondent of the Berlin "Tagesspiegel" announced.
Four weeks after his departure, he returned to Istanbul on the weekend, where he lives and works since 1997, longer than any other European journalist. "I am pleased that all misunderstandings have now been eliminated," said Seibert the news agency afp.
Seibert and the ZDF correspondent Jörg Brase had to leave Turkey on 10 March because their applications for an extension of their press accreditation had been rejected. The director of the ZDF studio in Istanbul received a new accreditation two days later and then returned to Turkey. The press card is generally required for foreign journalists to obtain a residence permit in Turkey.
Diplomatic moods
The withdrawal of accreditation for the two correspondents had caused diplomatic upsets between Berlin and Ankara. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) called the actions of the Turkish authorities "unacceptable".
On Thursday, Maas met with his Turkish colleague Mevlüt Cavusoglu on the sidelines of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Washington. According to his statements, the conversation was also about "accreditation issues for journalists".