Germany Warns Against Foreign Meddling After Erdogan's Call on Ethnic Turks

Germany expects other states to abstain from interfering in its internal affairs following the Turkish leader's call on the Turkish diaspora to vote against the German ruling parties, a government spokesman said Friday.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — The warning came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens "enemies of Turkey" and urged ethnic Turks to vote against them in the September 24 election.

"As for the recent statement of President Erdogan, we expect that other governments will not interfere in our internal affairs," German government spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has accused the Turkish president of trying to "drive a wedge" between people in Germany and urged them to resist what he described as a "blatant interference" in the German election campaign.

"That is a unique violation of our country's sovereignty. I call on all German people to counteract these incitement attempts," Gabriel said in a statement.

A recent Yougov poll has indicated the conservative CDU/CSU bloc is likely to win 37 percent of votes in the upcoming parliamentary election, while the SPD has the support of 25 percent of voters.

The relations between Berlin and Ankara soured in recent months after Germany banned several Turkish officials from coming to the country to campaign for Erdogan ahead of a referendum that granted him more executive powers.