Turkey’s leader Erdogan cites Hitler’s Germany to defend his plans to create a ‘super-presidency’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cited Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler to defend his controversial push to expand the powers of the presidency.

Erdogan, the strongman of Turkish politics for more than a decade, is seeking a new constitution to transform his post into a powerful US-style executive “super-presidency,” which he says will provide more effective governance.

“In a unitary system (such as Turkey's) a presidential system can work perfectly,” Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters in Istanbul on Thursday on his return from a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“There are already examples in the world and in history. You can see it when you look at Hitler's Germany.”

But in a press statement published later, the Turkish presidency said it was “unacceptable” to interpret Erdogan’s remarks as endorsement of Nazism.

“Our president... has declared that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, along with islamophobia, are crimes against humanity,” it said.