BREAKING NEWS

German state curbs work with Islamic group with ties to Turkey

BERLIN - A German state has stopped working with the country's biggest Muslim association, which has strong links to Ankara, on a project to prevent radicalization due to a row over a comic that it said glorified martyrdom.
The state of North Rhine-Westphalia said it had ended cooperation on the project with the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs in Cologne.
A spokesman for the state's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday it had asked DITIB to make a clear it did not agree with an illustration in a comic, published in Turkey by the religious authority Diyanet earlier this year.
German media reproduced what it said was the image in question, with a translation of the Turkish.
It depicted a conversation between a father and son which ended with the exchange: "Daddy, is it worthwhile to become a martyr?" and "Of course, my dear! Who doesn't want to go to paradise?"