LUDWIGSHAFEN - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for calm Thursday in this German city where nine Turkish immigrants died in a fire, triggering racial tension and allegations of arson.
"We should not forget that we are all human beings," Erdogan said after consoling relatives of the victims in front of the burned out apartment block in Ludwigshafen where 70 people were trapped in flames on Sunday.
Four adults and five children died in the blaze and 60 people were injured.
Police are investigating the possibility of arson after a seven-year-old Turkish girl who survived the fire said a German-speaker ignited a pram in the foyer of the building.
While prosecutors have described the testimony as "very significant", police say the investigation is still in its early stages and nothing has been proved.
Erdogan appealed to the Turkish media to show restraint following reports stating that the fire was a cold-blooded attempt to kill Turks living in the southwestern city.
"You should not print such bold letters that can destroy the peace," he said.
The Turkish prime minister had himself earlier this week voiced concern that the fire might have been the work of arsonists.
"We are greatly concerned over the possibility of premeditation in the fire, in which all the victims were Turks," he said on Tuesday.
"Is the real reason behind this sad event xenophobia? We hope not."
Turkey has dispatched its own investigators to Ludwigshafen to follow the probe.
The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that several firemen had been placed under police protection after suffering abuse from members of the local Turkish community. They accused them of having arrived at the scene too late to save the victims.
One of the firemen was attacked in a restaurant on Tuesday night by a man of Turkish origin, the paper quoted the police chief as saying. People had also spat at fire engines in Ludwigshafen, it reported.
Local authorities insist that firemen were at the scene four minutes after receiving an alert that the four-storey building was on fire.
The blaze destroyed the wooden staircase in the block, forcing panicked occupants to jump from windows to escape the flames.
In a dramatic scene, a man threw a baby girl from the third floor into the arms of a policeman on the ground.
Police searching the gutted building and reportedly found the word "hate" scrawled on a wall next to a Turkish culture association housed on the ground floor.
According to a state prosecutor, a Turkish cafe on the ground floor of the apartment building was vandalised in 2006.
Germany is home to about 2.5 million people of Turkish origin, but German political leaders believe there is a strong need to improve the integration of the community.
Erdogan visited Ludwigshafen ahead of traveling to Munich on Friday to attend an annual international security conference.
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02/07/2008 21:06 GMT