The NATO Summit and the Threshold of World War III

This past week, America’s capital, Washington, D.C., hosted the most interesting summit in the history of NATO gatherings. In the summit, which was held against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war, Turkiye had NATO’s second most powerful military force, yet other issues still took priority over Turkiye’s. The preeminent issues were, on the one hand, the genocide that the Israeli entity has been committing against Gaza for 10 months with the support of America and Europe. On the other hand was America’s open support for terrorist organizations fighting against Turkiye in northern Syria. This situation shows dangerous tensions between Turkiye and America, and this means that the two largest members in the alliance are opposed on multiple fronts. Yet they remain united within NATO.

It is well known that the NATO agreement stipulates that when any member country is exposed to an attack from any party, it is considered an attack against all countries in the alliance. So all member countries in NATO remain committed to the protection of the country that is attacked. Despite this, America itself is posing a threat to Turkiye, not to mention the fact that America should be committed to joining with Turkiye to defend against any attack. It is clear that America supports the Democratic Union Party, a branch of the Kurdistan Labor Party that has been declared a terrorist organization in northern Syria and has repeatedly attacked Turkiye. Before all else, this is a violation of the NATO alliance agreement and means that America is ignoring all of Turkiye’s warnings, heedlessly following its own agenda.

Turkiye’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, publicly expressed this difficult point in the gathering in which he participated in Washington, D.C., saying: “Those who believe that they can establish a terrorist state in our region are running after dreams that will never come true.”

Erdogan added: “The question of terrorism has been discussed repeatedly in NATO gatherings and it is considered one of the most important global problems in this era. I affirm that Turkiye truthfully has exercised all of its capabilities in this regard. The Turkish state has taken on a mission to fight the terrorist organizations without distinguishing between them, and this has clearly happened. Turkiye expects its NATO allies to adopt a similar approach in the fight against terrorism." But, according to Erdogan: “Unfortunately, we have not yet received the expected level of support and solidarity from our allies.”

To exacerbate Turkiye’s criticism of American policies, Turkiye is the only state in NATO that is in dialogue with Russia. Turkiye opposes the provocative NATO expansion policies that the NATO alliance is producing against Russia. Turkiye is the only country asking Russia for peace rather than war and dialogue rather than division.

In this situation, full of disputes and disagreements, Turkiye stands out as the only state in NATO with space for dialogue with Russia. This cements Turkiye’s role in conducting negotiations for NATO’s crisis with Russia. Turkiye takes on this role to keep the channels of peace open and to avoid conflict from breaking out, as it would affect all parties. America is using NATO to drag the region into a war scenario that would harm all states in the region and in Europe. And first and foremost, it would harm humanity. This is why it is necessary to stand up against this scenario and stay loyal to the mission of preserving peace in the region and the world.

Looking back on this NATO summit, it produced a resolution that will provoke hostility and open the door to war, because it focused on integrating Ukraine into the Western camp and NATO. The resolution also promised billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine. That clearly means that the Ukrainian people are a sacrifice to pressure and weaken Russia. The sacrifice will not be limited to the Ukrainian people; there is intense fear and anxiety among people that with the conclusion of this summit, the world is approaching a third world war. This is exactly what Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan pointed out during a newspaper interview, when he stated that we are approaching World War III.

The bottom line is that humanity must wake up so that we do not all turn to military organizations that fuel conflict and march toward a tragic end to the world. God preserve us and inspire us with reason.