Time to Sanction and Suspend Turkey from NATO

The Armenian Council of America (ACA), the Pan Armenian Council of Toronto (PACT), and the Armenian Councils of Europe (ACE) urgently call upon their respective governments to sanction and suspend Turkey from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

NATO, the international alliance, which consists of 29 member states from North America and Europe, has a moral duty and obligation to sanction and suspend Turkey from its ranks in light of Turkey’s current military invasion in Syria’s north-eastern territory and their indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, under the false pretense of creating a “security zone.”

The primary goal of Turkey’s illegal invasion of the region is the ethnic cleansing of Kurds and other ethnic minorities including Armenians, Assyrians, and Yazidis.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a self-proclaimed champion of the Muslim Brotherhood, has changed the Turkish constitution, re-run elections that did not favor his political party, and led a crackdown on journalists and political dissenters, as well as a purge of thousands suspected, without evidence, of involvement in a failed 2016 coup.

The Turkish government did very little to rein in ISIS fighters transiting through its territory to join the battles in Iraq and Syria, exacerbating the crises initiated by the so-called Islamic State, even allowing ISIS fighters to pass through Turkey to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe.

The people of northern Syria; Kurds, Arabs, and other ethnic minorities including Armenians, Assyrians, and Yazidis , on the other hand bore the brunt of the fighting against ISIS, sacrificed countless souls and never wavered. The European, American, and Canadian governments, members of NATO, who benefited from this heroism cannot stand by as Turkey attempts to commit another Genocide.

Sanctions should not be lifted and Turkey should not be considered an ally until it terminates its unilateral military operations and militant attitude towards its neighbors and regional minorities, come to terms with its historical facts, and ceases its anti-democratic foreign and domestic policies.