At NATO, the US has accounts to give to Turkey, not to ask of it

At the NATO leaders' summit being held in Brussels today, the alliance's ten-year strategic action plan, and therefore the alliance's mission over the next ten years, will be discussed. There is no doubt that this mission has recently been subject to serious erosion.

What will a NATO that has been unable to protect Europe's borders against Russia, and that has taken on no protective, order-establishing mission in the face of the annexation of Crimea, the threats against Ukraine, and the situations arising in general in the Middle East, in Syria and in Libya, have to say, first to its own members and then to the whole world, about what it can do from now on? This is the crucial question. Not only is the alliance incapable of ensuring the security of its own members, it is also under the pressure of the claims to hegemony that one of its members, the US or France, from time to time tries to establish over all members through faits accomplis.

By their arbitrary cooperation with countries that are not NATO members, to the detriment of their own fellow member states, these same members also have an effect that, above all, renders the alliance meaningless. Without regard for what they themselves do, they nonetheless do not refrain from brazenly using the alliance's obligations as an instrument of pressure on other countries.

In a statement made just three days before the Leaders' Summit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly said that "Turkey is not behaving in many respects as a NATO ally should behave." In his remarks, Blinken, who expressed concern over such matters as Turkey's purchase of the S-400 from Russia, steps taken in the Eastern Mediterranean, human rights and the treatment of journalists, also said that President Joe Biden would raise these issues in his meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today. Thus, before the meeting has even begun, he has, in his own estimation, given Turkey a first dressing-down. In this way he made sure that everyone would be attentive to the declaration Biden is to read out against Erdoğan.

Yet the situation is the exact opposite. Everyone knows that it is the US itself that is not behaving as a NATO ally should, and that in today's meeting what Erdoğan will say to Biden is far more important than what Biden will say to Erdoğan.

Erdoğan has in fact been telling for days what he will read out to Biden. He said it again at the meeting he held at the airport before setting out for Brussels.

The US, which as a NATO member should regard a threat directed at another member as if it were directed at itself, on the contrary supports the PKK/PYD/YPG terrorists, who are an open threat to Turkey and who are coded as terrorists even in its own terror classification, and so above all pours poison on NATO's very root.

What is the aim and strategy of the US's activities in Syria, right under the nose of Turkey, its ally in NATO? Why does it not inform Turkey about this, and why does it not act transparently toward Turkey? If the priority is the fight against DAESH, is there any other country or actor in the world that has fought DAESH as successfully and genuinely as Turkey? Why, here, does it construct enemy-games and war strategies of its own accord and do business with the terrorist enemies of an allied member? These are extremely simple, plain questions, laid bare by the reality in plain sight.

We can of course repeat the same questions for FETÖ as well.

Could we not hear a word or two from the US, which is troubled about journalists in Turkey on account of Turkey's NATO membership, about the massacres Israel, which has wrecked the security, stability and democracy of the region, committed in Gaza just two weeks ago, and about its razing of the media building that housed dozens of newspaper and TV offices and that tried to relay these massacres to the world? That it takes up the cause of those who organize coups under the guise of journalists in this matter itself only shows how far this NATO ally has strayed from the friendship, the law and the ethics of alliance.

The US, which regards Turkey's purchase of the S-400 from Russia as contrary to the law of being a NATO ally, what explanation does it have as to why it did not supply the defense systems Turkey needs to ensure its own security, or as to how it will supply them? What contribution to the NATO alliance can a member that always takes things from its ally and gives nothing have? What benefit can such an alliance have for its members? Clearly, what could an alliance that brings no good to its members have to say to the world?

The same Blinken, while stating that they are pleased with Turkey's stepping back from some of its initiatives in the Eastern Mediterranean, also said they found it positive that Ankara withdrew its ships from the waters it regards as the exclusive economic zone of Southern Cyprus and ended its drilling activities; but in the meantime he also stated that one of the points of dispute is Turkey's dispute with the Greek Cypriots in the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, with its approach of deeming in advance right the Greek Cypriots, who are not NATO members, in a dispute, the US once again shows how far it is from behaving like an ally.

On 24 April, Biden's aggressive and presumptuous statements describing the events of 106 years ago as "genocide" are the icing on the cake.

All of these are among the matters included in the account that the US must give. The US has an account to give rather than one to ask for, and today is the first day of meeting for that account to be settled. Good luck!