WELLINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called for the immediate release of Niger President Mohamed Bazoum.

       Bazoum has been removed from power, according to a group of soldiers who appeared on the West African nation's national television late on Wednesday, hours after the president was held in the presidential palace.

       "Whether this constitutes a coup technically or not, I can't say, that's for the lawyers to say, but what it clearly constitutes is an effort to seize power by force and to disrupt the constitution," Blinken told a news conference in the New Zealand capital Wellington.

       Blinken called for Bazoum's immediate release.

       (Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Alasdair Pal)