Congressmen say Turkey is undermining NATO
The top Democrat and the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee criticized Turkey's purchase of a Russian air defense system and drilling in the Mediterranean.
The Democratic and Republican leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee say Turkey’s “provocative behavior” is undermining NATO and US-Turkey relations.
Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and ranking member Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Turkey is hurting the trans-Atlantic alliance with its actions regarding Russia, Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.
“We are gravely concerned by the threat Turkey’s increasingly provocative behavior poses to our decades-long bilateral relationship, to the NATO alliance, and to the region more broadly,” Engel and McCaul said in a statement Wednesday.
NATO, officially known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union. NATO continued to operate following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. In the Middle East, NATO conducts a training mission in Iraq. NATO forces are also in Afghanistan. Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
