Vienna to Ban Turkish Election Campaign Events in Austria

VIENNA (Sputnik) - Austria will not allow Turkish election campaign events, including speeches by Turkish politicians, to be held within its borders, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Friday.

The chancellor recalled that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been trying to use the Turkish diaspora in Europe for political purposes for years.

"As chancellor, I want to put an end to this. Speeches by Turkish politicians that are part of the election campaign are unwanted in Austria and we will not allow them anymore," Kurz told the Oe1 radio broadcaster.

On Wednesday, Erdogan said that the early presidential election would take place in Turkey on June 24. When explaining why he moved up the election, which was initially scheduled for November 2019, the president said that the switch to the presidential system of government, which would boost presidential powers and remove the post of prime minister, was needed as soon as possible. On Thursday, Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said that he would support Erdogan in the upcoming vote, while incumbent Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has expressed his readiness to resign.

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Austria was one of the EU countries which refused to host rallies before the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum, which established the new system of government. In March 2017, then Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called on the European Union to ban Turkish political campaigns across the bloc.