Germany urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to not interfere" in its election campaign Friday, after he urged Turkish residents with the right to vote to shun major parties.

"We expect foreign governments to not interfere in our internal affairs," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter.

Erdogan called on ethnic Turks to not cast their ballots for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel or the Greens, as they were "enemies of Turkey".