The Resurgent Ottoman Empire

"Turkish artillery shelling of Syrian territory constitutes direct support to the armed terrorist organisations."
"[Turkey has allowed gunmen either] Turkish soldiers or Turkish mercenaries [to cross into Syria]."
"[Syria] will maintain its legitimate right to respond to the Turkish crimes and attacks and to claim compensation for the damage caused."
Syrian Government 

"When these incidents started, I said they were all fascist oppression, I said Nazism is rising again." "[Holland will] pay the price [for its actions]."
"Nazism is alive in the West." 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech at the Presidential Palace in Ankara. (photo credit:REUTERS) 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan like his Syrian opponent with whom he once had excellent diplomatic relations, is just as guilty as Bashar al-Assad of committing human rights abuses against his own population. Turkish Kurds, reluctantly Turks, yearning for a geography dedicated to Kurds within their own ancient territory, have earned Erdogan's undying animus by refusing to fuse their culture and heritage with that of the Turks, much less abandon their language for Kurdish, and this infuriates Erdogan who considers them dangerous traitors.

Kurds in Turkey are once again awaiting with trepidation further Turkish military advances on their villages. This NATO-linked country has committed no end of war crimes against its own citizens, and continues to mount attacks on Turks whom the Justice and Development party that Erdogan leads accuses of being involved in ongoing efforts to mount a coup, after the failed effort of the past summer. Tens of thousands of Turks, including Kurds, are languishing in prison. Journalists, civil servants, members of the police, military, judiciary, all accused of being Gulenists.

Erdogan's attention is also fused across the border in Syria, determined to ensure that Syrian Kurds fail to establish a corridor alongside the border with Turkey, linking the YPG with the PKK. Now, Erdogan has returned his focus to Europe, where millions of Turks, settled as immigrants in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and elsewhere have become vital to the proposed passage of a bill to change the Turkish constitution granting greater powers to the President.

The three million Turks that have established themselves in Europe are the target of Erdogan's attention, their votes required to ensure the bill will succeed, garnering the authority required to honour Erdogan as President-for-life. Germany initially asserted its sovereign right to refuse to permit Turkey's foreign minister to travel to Germany for the express purpose of rallying German Turks to vote for Erdogan's constitutional change.

That earned Germany Erdogan's contempt for demonstrating that its Nazi past is alive and well, according to his interpretation. And then the Netherlands followed suit, further enraging the man who seems to thrive on indignant, volatile condemnation of all non-Muslim entities who stand in his way of achieving his goals. Rotterdam failed to give permission to the Turkish foreign minister and the Turkish family affairs minister to enter the country to rally for Turkish votes.

The divided loyalties of Turks living in Europe, incited by the Turkish president, became abundantly evident when violent protests arose, where ethnic Turkish residents opposed the police and demonstrated where their true loyalties lie. To his credit the mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb stated his opinion that the Turkish consul-general in Rotterdam had "scandalously misled" Dutch authorities about Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya's purpose, when she was declared an "unwanted alien" by the Netherlands government.

Dutch police clash with Turkish citizens gathering outside Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on March 12, 2017 Photographer: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The depth of the absurdity is that the Netherlands is averse during this election season to have any distractions given that the current government is likely to lose to the anti-immigrant party of Geert Wilders which asserts that Holland has been completely disrupted, its social, political and legal values upturned by the presence of a foreign element whose religious beliefs dictate their politics, social interaction, whose inability and unwillingness to integrate degrades the traditions of the country.

The current situation leading to a diplomatic spat between Holland and Turkey whose heated and uncivil discourse it conflates with true democracy while equating the Netherlands government's reaction to Turkey's determined entitlements to do as it will in another country as a symptom of fascism. To interfere with Erdogan's political aspirations by invoking sovereignty to avoid complicating the Dutch elections represents a European conspiracy in Nazism, in Erdogan's opinion.

This country is clearly unfit to be recognized as a collegial quasi-European solution to the separation between Western nations and the Muslim nations of the world whose sense of unearned entitlements try the patience of European governments beyond what can be tolerated. The stresses and strains that Western nations experience in their efforts to accommodate and appease the demands of nations like Turkey whose penchant for dramatic histrionics reflect an inability to play by civilized rules of conduct express time and again just why it is that the twain shall never meet.

Turkey's conduct in Europe reflects in part, its erratic behaviour in its own geographic sphere, where all those who disagree with its choice of reactions to the groups it considers a threat to its own well- being are gained the distinction of being considered enemies to be defeated by all means available, showing just how unreliable it is as a 'partner' in any global enterprise, much less that of defeating Islamist fundamentalism, since Turkey itself has become one of those Islamist fundamentalist volcanoes.