Vienna: Turkey initiates demonstrations in support of Erdogan

Austria has summoned Turkey's ambassador to explain Ankara's links to demonstrations in Austria in support of Turkey's president Tayyip Erdogan, who is leading a crackdown after a failed coup, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said.

The Austrian Foreign Ministry "wants to understand how the situation will develop," he noted. Kurz said that the ambassador was asked whether Turkish officials encouraged thousands of people in Austria to take to the streets over recent days in support of Erdogan after the attempt to unseat him.

"We have evidence that the demonstrations for Erdogan that have taken place in Vienna were called for directly from Turkey... and that, of course, is absolutely untenable and we want to protest against that," Reuters cited him as saying.