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Why Europe must part ways with the Ottoman Sultan aka Tayyip Erdoğan
[Wash Times] Turkey, once a dependable ally of the West, is on the verge of becoming an authoritarian dictatorship.As the NATO alliance ponders how to protect its citizens from an avalanche of refugees, humanitarian catastrophe, and terrorists on its eastern door, Turkish voters ponder the referendum of referendums. The question before them is whether to vote on April 16 to give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authority to rule by decree, lifetime immunity from prosecution and extra-judicial powers that totalitarian dictators all say they can’t live without. Although the controversial, radical political Islamist president has been ruling by state of emergency since an aborted coup last July, he insists he needs a revised Constitution. By his lights, only radical constitutional amendments will enable him to vanquish fanatical extremists of diverse types, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamic State. Oh yes, and the new constitution supposedly will pave Turkey’s path to the "great nation" status it held during the Ottoman times. But since the president’s referendum drive is trailing in the polls, Mr. Erdogan has been making a full-court press to rally a "yes" vote among the Turkish diaspora. He sent his top cabinet ministers in the last two weeks to stump for the referendum among the 2-million strong Turkish vote base in Germany and the Netherlands. To his disappointment, first Germany and then the Netherlands denied permissions to his Justice and Development Party (AKP) ministers to energize the base at his campaign rallies. Mr. Erdogan marshaled national pride and personal pique to counter-attack. He openly called the politicians in those countries "remnants of Nazis," while orchestrating large, angry demonstrations on the steps of Dutch and German embassies and stopping the Dutch ambassador’s return to Ankara. AKP supporters in Rotterdam took to the streets in violent clashes with police. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-03-17 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=483616 |