Frank-Walter Steinmeier

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he will continue to call European countries "Nazis" as long as they continue to call him a dictator.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he would call the European countries fascists as long as they continue to call him a dictator.

In his first public speech, as reported on March 22, new German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier directly criticized Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan, asking him to stop "jeopardizing everything" that he has built "with others" so far. "The way we look [at Turkey] is characterized by worry that everything built up over years and decades is collapsing," Steinmeier said.

If Europeans continue to act in the same way with respect to Turkey, they will not be safe anywhere, stated Turkish President Recep Erdogan at a meeting with journalists in Ankara.

"If Europe continues in this way, no European - anywhere in the world - will now be able to walk the streets and be safe," stated Erdogan, cited by Reuters.

In his first speech as president, Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier has issued a stark warning to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he risked destroying everything his country had achieved in recent years and damaging ties with its partners.

BELGRADE - Former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected the country's president on Sunday.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has congratulated the newly elected President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

A message posted on the Serbian government's website reads:

Billed as Germany's "anti-Trump", center-left former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected on Feb. 12 as the new ceremonial head of state.

The 61-year-old, who regularly polls as Germany's most popular politician, will represent the EU's top economy abroad and act as a kind of moral arbiter for the nation.

Germany's outgoing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has been elected President of the country, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports.

Steinmeier's bid was backed by both social-democrat SPD party and Merkel's conservative CDU, which did not nominate its own candidate. He was widely expected to win.

Former European Parliament President Martin Schulz has become the German Social Democrats' Chancellor candidate for the general election this year.

The SPD party has also officially nominated him as its leader, with a formal election due in the party in the middle of March, according to the Frakfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.