Excerpt:
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday rallied thousands of supporters in Germany, weeks before his Islamic-rooted party will contest June parliamentary elections.
"The ballot box is your weapon," Erdogan told the crowd of over 14,000, who waved Turkish flags and shouted "We love you Erdogan, we are proud of you!" national news agency DPA reported.
Outside the congress centre near the western city of Karlsruhe, some of his supporters scuffled with critics, police said, while Kurdish and other opponents waved placards that read "Erdogan, you are anti-democratic".