COLOGNE (GERMANY) (AFP) -
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was due in Istanbul Sunday to press Turkey to stem the flow of migrants into Europe, a day after a German mayoral candidate was seriously wounded in a "racist" stabbing.
Her meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has heaped scorn on Europe's efforts to deal with the crisis, comes with her government's migrant policies fuelling growing tensions in Germany, triggering a backlash from her conservative allies and spawning a growing number of increasingly vocal far-right protests.
She has pushed for a fairer distribution of people across the European Union, but the crisis has sorely tested ties between member states and put unprecedented strain on the right to free movement that is at the core of the 28-nation bloc's values.
On Saturday, Merkel expressed "shock" over the attack in the western city of Cologne which left mayoral hopeful Henriette Reker with serious neck wounds.
Reker, an independent close to Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats who is active in helping refugees, was stabbed while at a party information stand in the city.
Four other people were also injured, one of them seriously, with regional police chief Wolfgang Albers saying it was a "political act".
The attacker was arrested at the scene and told police he had "a racist motivation for committing this act", Cologne police official Norbert Wagner said at a news conference.
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http://www.france24.com/en/20151018-merkel-heads-turkey-over-migrant-crisisbleep Turkey. They're angling for full EU membership out of this - not going to happen.
