The United Nations is an enabler of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions. For example, according to the official readout of a meeting last Friday in Turkey between United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Erdogan, who had invaded northern Syria to remove the Syrian Kurds from their homes near the Syrian border with Turkey, the Secretary-General expressed “his deep appreciation for the strong cooperation and support of Turkey to the United Nations.” There was nothing in the readout about the Turkish invasion and its devastating consequences for the Kurds displaced from their homes. Instead, Secretary-General Guterres welcomed Turkey’s presentation of its “plan for new settlement areas for the return of Syrian refugees.”
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, will engage with Turkey over its plan to resettle as many as two million Syrian refugees in northern Syria, according to the readout. However, absent from the readout was any mention of the fact that such resettlement would likely be at least partially at the expense of the 100,000 plus Kurds still displaced from their homes as a result of the Turkish invasion. There would in effect be a trade?off between the displacement of the Kurds and Turkey’s proposal to replace them with some Syrian refugees now living in Turkey, which the Secretary-General refuses to acknowledge.
The Turkish regime has “continued to jail more journalists than any other on the planet,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Turkish authorities have also looked away as the tide of violence against journalists has arisen. Yet Secretary-General Guterres’ adulation of the Turkish regime preceded by just one day the “International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists” proclaimed by the UN General Assembly.
“When journalists are targeted, societies as a whole pay a price,” the Secretary-General declared in his remarks calling for an end to impunity for persecution of journalists. “Without the ability to protect journalists, our ability to remain informed and contribute to decision-making is severely hampered. Without journalists able to do their jobs in safety, we face the prospect of a world of confusion and disinformation.” Yet there was not a word in the readout of the Secretary-General’s meeting with Erdogan about the many journalists imprisoned in Turkish jails and intimidated by Turkish paramilitary and security forces. Lofty rhetoric in public releases is meaningless when the opportunity to speak truth to power is squandered.
Turkey supports the terrorist group Hamas
Turkey supports the terrorist group Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets and missiles from its bases in Gaza at Israeli population centers. Hamas is targeting Israeli civilians including children for murder and maiming, while using Palestinian children as human shields. Erdogan’s regime has provided a safe haven for Hamas terrorists, enabled the transfer of funds to subsidize Hamas’s terror attacks, and contributed to its military operational capabilities. Nevertheless, when the UN Security Council convened on October 28th to discuss the situation in the Middle East, it concentrated as usual on bashing Israel. Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, castigated the Security Council for focusing on Israel while “Erdogan has turned Turkey into a regional hub for terrorism” and “expands his terror campaign into Syria.” Then again, that should be no surprise since the UN General Assembly has immorally refused to even label Hamas as the terrorist organization it truly is. Meanwhile, Turkey is further entrenching its occupation of northern Cyprus as well as northern Syria without any objection from the United Nations establishment.
Erdogan’s support for Islamic terrorists is all the more frightening because Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions for Turkey include the possibility of acquiring its own nuclear weapons. Last September Erdogan told members of his ruling party, “Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, not one or two. But (they tell us) we can’t have them. This, I cannot accept.”
There are 50 or so American nuclear weapons stored on Turkish soil, which are reportedly kept in an American-controlled bunker. However, that arrangement made sense only when Turkey was a more reliable NATO ally than it is today under Erdogan. Their continued presence in Turkey, while Erdogan at the same time is looking to Russia for arms support and help in building a major nuclear reactor, is alarming, especially in view of the Erdogan regime’s record as a major conduit for aid to terrorists.
It’s not enough for Secretary-General Guterres to warn about the world “slipping back into bad habits that will once again hold the entire world hostage to the threat of nuclear annihilation.” Those are empty words if he remains silent in the face of Erdogan’s nuclear ambitions and support for terrorists who want to annihilate Israel for starters.
Excellent article. I hope that Trump, State Department officials, Congressmen and women, and senior U.S. military officrs all read it. They, like the U<N., have yet to get the message about Turkey.