“I am afraid that the steps taken by the Austrian prime minister would bring the world closer to a crusader-crescent war,” Turkish President Erdoğan said in Istanbul. He added that Turkey would also “respond” in due course to the decision to expel imams.

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım also slammed the Austria’s decision to close the mosques.  “It is quite wrong. It neither suits universal legal rules nor the EU’s values nor the migrants’ law,” Yıldırım said on June 8.