MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th December, 2020) Turkish Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin has called on NATO to pay more attention to security concerns, shared by some of its member states, during an online event organized by the US German Marshall Fund (GMF) on Wednesday.
"I think it's really about coordinating our efforts, understanding each other's national security concerns, our political priorities. The more conversations we have about this I believe, the more streamlining we will have on all of these issues," Kalin said.
Kalin highlighted the existence of two national security issues that concern Turkey with regards to any US administration, namely Washington's support for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People's Protection Units (YPG) groups in Syria, and the inaction exhibited by several successive US governments in addressing the active presence of Gulenist (FETO) networks on the US soil, all of which are recognized as terrorist organizations by the Turkish authorities.
"As far as Turkey's expectation from any US government is concerned, there are two pressing national security issues for Turkey: number one is the continuing US support for the PYD/YPG in Syria, which we believe is wrong and has been wrong from the very beginning ... and number two issue is the inaction of successive US governments, the [Barack] Obama presidency, the [Donald] Trump presidency, for one reason or another, about the presence of FETO Gulenist networks in the US, and you know they are responsible for the July 15 [2016] coup attempt, and their main ringleaders have been living in the US," Kalin stated, adding with regret that both the US and the EU have become safe havens for members of these groups.
The subject of the need for a mutual understanding of concerns to national security was further highlighted by Kalin when he discussed the imprisonment of journalists in Turkey, stating that those in question have been jailed in light of their links to terrorist groups, adding that there is room for improvement and better understanding between Turkey and its Western allies with regards to the freedom of speech issues.
"Some people and governments claim that Turkey has put so many journalists in prison et cetera, and we have tried to explain on every occasion possible that some of these people are not in prison not because of their journalism, but because of their connections and relations with either PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party, banned in Turkey], or FETO, or other organizations," Kalin added, while commenting on the possibility of Turkey facing pressure from the administration of projected US President-elect Joe Biden.
Despite the cordial rhetoric between Turkey and NATO, the country's foreign policy has been at odds with that of many of its allies, specifically with regards to Syria, Russia, Iraq and Libya. These differences were accentuated by the Eastern Mediterranean Crisis earlier this year when tensions between Turkey and its NATO allies Greece and France prompted NATO to establish a de-conflicting mechanism to prevent incidents between the Greek and Turkish navies at sea.
