Erdoğan reminds Assad of end of Gaddafi and Hitler

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said for the first time that Syria's president must step down over the country's brutal crackdown on dissent, ratcheting up the pressure on the increasingly isolated Bashar Assad, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

In his harshest words yet, Erdoğan reminded Assad of the bloody end of the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, as well as past dictators, including Adolf Hitler.

"For the welfare of your own people and the region, just leave that seat," Erdoğan said in a televised speech.

"If you want to see someone who has fought until death against his own people, just look at Nazi Germany, just look at Hitler, at Mussolini, at Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania," he said. "If you cannot draw any lessons from these, then look at the Libyan leader who was killed just 32 days ago."

Erdogan's warning came the day after Syrian soldiers opened fire on at least two buses carrying Turkish citizens, witnesses and officials said, apparent retaliation for Turkey's criticism of Assad, whose military crackdown on an 8-month-old uprising against his rule has killed nearly 4,000 people.