The Turkish regime’s appalling human-rights violations against her 15 million Kurdish citizens continue to elicit outcries of condemnation from the U.S. State Department and human-rights organizations. Additionally, despite constant appeals by the UN, Turkey persists in violating fundamental precepts of international law by militarily occupying 37 percent of the Republic of Cyprus with more than 30,000 soldiers and approximately 80,000 colonists. All this is done using U.S.-supplied arms in violation of the U.S. Military Sales Act.
In a recent provocation that illustrates the Turkish government’s disregard for international norms of conduct, Ankara sought to derail the membership of Cyprus in the European Union by threatening the integration of the occupied territory with Turkey.
The excuse that NATO-member Turkey is a bulwark against a Soviet threat has no more currency. Given that Turkey needs United States aid and trade more than the United States needs Turkey, supplying military and economic aid to that regime without insisting on accountability could lead to a black eye for U.S. foreign policy comparable only to the fiasco that resulted from propping up the Shah of Iran despite his regime’s gross human-rights violations.
The U.S. administration should live up to the Eisenhower doctrine that stipulates that there can be no peace without law, and there can be no law if we are to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us and another for our friends.
