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Greens co-leader Cem zdemir launched an election-year broadside in the Sunday edition of the populist broadsheet "Bild," calling Germany's government compliant with rights abuses in Turkey.

He also criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel's planned trip to Ankara in April, just ahead of a referendum in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will seekto expand his powers - and the amount of time he spends in office.

zdemir said the trip could "only be evaluated as support for Erdogan's journey toward dictatorship."

He condemned a planned pre-referendum speech by Erdogan in Germany. "Erdogan abuses our democracy to campaign for his dictatorship," zdemir said. Seventy-seven percent of respondents in a recent survey also want Germany's government to find a way to ban Erdogan's speech.

zdemir also said the government had been too reticent in callsfor the release of Deniz Ycel, a journalist for the German newspaper "Welt" - also owned by "Bild" publisher Axel Springer - who has been arrested in Istanbul for his reporting.

Afghanistan: 'Not safe'

zdemir also struck out at Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel's pursuing of deportations of rejected asylum applicants to Afghanistan despite the fact that much of the country remains at war or experiences warlike conditions. Gabriel must "swiftly adapt the appraisal of the situation to the reality," zdemir told Bild.

Other Greens took to the press Sunday to criticize Gabriel anddeportations sought by Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere. Federal parliamentarianOmid Nouripour told the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that the classification of Afghanistan as a "safe" country for deportations was "politically motivated." Nouripour, who recently traveled to Afghanistan to evaluate the situation with his own eyes, said the ruling parties had fallen into a "panic" in the face of the rising anti-immigrant, nationalist party Alternative for Germany.

Last week, Gabriel said the situation could not be evaluated in Afghanistan as a whole - and that 56 percent of asylum applicants from the nation were approved anyway. "There are safe and very unsafe regions," Gabriel said on Wednesday. According to numbers reported by "Welt" at the end of January, Germany has ordered more than 12,500 Afghans deported, and some politicians, especially from Bavaria's ruling Christian Social Union, have called for removals to be accelerated.

Dietary dispute

In the interview, the Greens lawmaker also gave "Bild" a bit of personal information.

Now 51, zdemir told the newspaper that he quit eating meat when he was 17 years old - and that his parents were not happy with the decision.

"For my father, meat was something that one had to work hard for," zdemir said. "He did not accept that his own son no longer wanted to eat it."

mkg/tj (AFP, kna, epd, dpa)

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German Greens co-chief zdemir raps Merkel and Gabriel on Turkey, Afghanistan - Deutsche Welle