That’s not the issue. It’s that Turks and Kurds are not considered European. Europeans are the most Islamophobic.

Even if these statements held any truth, they'd still be irrelevant. "The issue" was Turkey's extremely brutal treatment of Kurds.

Disagree. The current make-up of the EU barely represents historical bonds with so many nations in it. Though a populist leader using such history as leverage is not unbelievable, official Austrian reasoning behind refusal was much more pragmatic, human rights and migrants. Turkey is a regional player punching above their weight (potentially upsetting power balance less-so economically but definitely diplomatically and militarily) and is not exactly in line with EU ideals, culturally and politically, due to years of unstability and turmoil.

That being put aside, despite flaunting acceptance and democracy as their foremost goal, EU leaders surely knew not compromising on Turkey's accession would stray them farther of the EU in every way possible. And if that helps with a potentially bigger migrant crisis, so much the better.

Nations holding the region of Turkey are historically very powerful. My guess is that historical forces are reasserting themselves and that we may could see a much more assertive Turkey going forward.

... due to controlling a key choke-point in land trade between europe and the middle-east and asia. That hardly applies now. The suez canal would be a better modern equivalent.

> That hardly applies now.

I respectfully disagree given the basic fragility of the Suez Canal system along with the fact that Egypt is not growing into a major world power on the back of their governance of this canal.

No, they aren't, and there are plenty of reasons for that, not in the least because the canal is very different from a major trade city. But then, land trade is not making a comeback either. So if you're arguing for something to restore the historic importance of Troy, Constantinople etc, you're going to have to find a factor besides historic inevitability.

Forget Austria, there’s no way Greece or Cyprus would allow Turkey to join the EU.

I didn't follow it back then but why did Austria block it? I would have expected Greece to do so a lot more (considering the Cyprus conflict is still unresolved)