Erdogan urges German-Turks to punish mainstream parties

ISTANBUL – Turkey's president has condemned Germany's mainstream parties and urged German-Turkish voters not to support them in the country's upcoming elections.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the rising tension between the two countries is a result of Germany's internal political conflicts and explicitly named Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats and the Greens as "enemies of Turkey."

"I am urging all my countrymen in Germany to not make the mistake of supporting them." He added that this was now a matter of pride and that they should instead vote for political parties that didn't oppose Turkey.

Relations between the two countries have increasingly soured, with Turkey accusing Germany of harboring alleged terrorists and Germany protesting the arrest of several of its citizens in Turkey since last year's failed coup.