BERLIN, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Germany will cut funding to a Cologne-based Islamic organization criticized for its close ties to the Turkish government by 80 percent, the newspaper Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger reported on Thursday.
According to an official Interior Ministry response to a parliamentary enquiry by the Green party (Gruene), the Turkish Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) will receive significantly less government funding than was the case in previous years.
Berlin has earmarked 297,500 euros (349,586 U.S. dollars) for DITIB in 2018, an 80 percent reduction in funding compared to the 1.47 million euros it received in 2017 and a more than 90 percent cut compared to the 3.27 million euros granted mainly for refugee-focused projects back in 2016.
Green party religious affairs spokesperson Volker Beck urged the federal government to reassess cooperation with DITIB and other organizations with political ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Traditionally close relations between Berlin and Ankara have come under severe strain in the wake of a failed military coup against Erdogan in 2016.
Beck described the public money given to organizations such as DITIB as "false investments" and called the level of funding the Cologne-based Islamic Union had received as "astonishing."
The Green party politician further criticized that the list of DITIB projects funded by Berlin was "incomplete," highlighting a lack of transparency.
The German state had to know "who it was dealing with" when it came to project funding, pastoral services, religion classes, or even the official recognition of organizations, Beck said.
