...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany....as
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...opened the country's largest mosque at the end of his visit to Germany.
The inauguration on Saturday capped a controversial three-day state visit aimed at repairing frayed ties with Berlin after two years of tensions.
During his stay in Berlin, Erdogan met twice with Chancellor Angela Merkel
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as
Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslems ..
for talks, with both leaders signalling their interest in a cautious rapprochement, but also disagreements in a wide variety of issues.
The German Chancellor stressed that "deep differences" remained on civil rights and other issues, while Erdogan blamed Germany of harbouring terrorists.
Before returning home, Erdogan travelled to the western city of Cologne where several thousand critics turned out to protest against
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire....
's record on human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
, press freedom and its treatment of minority Kurds.
At one of the rallies on the bank of the Rhine river, demonstrators waved banners reading: "Erdogan not welcome".
Erdogan supporters meanwhile gathered near the Cologne Central Mosque as police cordoned off a large area around the mosque for safety reasons.
However,
a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth...
thousands of Erdogan supporters spilled into the side streets, hoping for a glimpse of the
Many waved Turkey's red and white flag or held up pictures of Erdogan, with crowds cheerfully breaking into regular chants of the president's name or shouting "Who is the greatest? Turkey".
SOURED RELATIONS
Both Cologne mayor Henriette Reker and the state's premier Armin Laschet declined to attend the mosque opening ceremony.
Can Turkey and Germany restore their broken relationship?
The snubs echoed the lukewarm welcome the
Ties between the two NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
countries soured after Berlin criticised Ankara's crackdown on opponents following a failed 2016 coup, which saw tens of thousands nabbed
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
.
Tensions eased somewhat after several high-profile German-
Merkel, whose country is home to more than three million ethnic Turks, stressed the need for continued dialogue to overcome disagreements.
But she also highlighted Germany's interest in a "stable" Turkey, which she relies on to help stem the flow of refugees to Europe.