Expat Turks begin casting votes for June 24 elections

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish citizens living abroad have started casting votes for Turkey's June 24 snap presidential and parliamentary elections.

Voting began on Thursday at airports and border gates in Turkey as well as in Turkish diplomatic missions in 60 countries. The expatriate polls close on June 19.

Some 3 million expatriate Turks are eligible to vote in the elections that are being held more than a year earlier than scheduled. Nearly half of them — 1.4 million — live in Germany, where polling stations have been set up in 13 cities.

The elections will usher in a new executive presidency that concentrates more powers in the president's hands and abolishes the office of the prime minister. The switch was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.