The greatest and most bloody organization of terror in the world, NATO, has gathered at the Vilnius Summit. The first news that came out of this summit is Erdoğan’s support for Sweden’s NATO membership. This decision is against the interests of the peoples of the world in general and of Turkey in particular. Far from reflecting the truth, the propaganda preaching that Erdoğan was able to gain some concessions in exchange for this decision is in fact obscuring it. The demands and conditions that Turkey pressed against Sweden under the rubric of “terror” are merely a sham. They are but strong points in the haggle. They have nothing to do with terror or terrorism. That Biden has given the green light to Turkey for purchasing F-16 military aircraft from the US, or that the promise by Sweden and the US of full support for Turkey’s European Union Membership etc. are no gain for Turkey. On the contrary, they are developments that will tighten the fiscal and military chains around Turkey’s neck.
The purchase of F-16 military aircraft is not a contribution to Turkey’s security, but a threat against it, because these negotiations are conditional upon Turkey’s engagement in NATO’s imperialist and terrorist war plans. The Vilnius Summit has enshrined NATO’s plan of threefold encirclement and attack. NATO is planning on encircling Russia in the high north (the poles) and the Atlantic (the northern zone plan), the region that stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Alps (the middle zone plan) and in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean (the southeastern zone plan), and thus elevating its proxy war in Ukraine to a new level. Turkey is being conscripted into a front of hot conflict by being engaged in this plan’s southeastern flank. Erdoğan has declared his readiness to be involved in this plan by his support for not only Sweden’s but also Ukraine’s NATO membership. And these are no mere words. He has also demonstrated a very clear position in action by sending the leaders of Nazi organizations used by NATO as proxies to the front, and thus openly violating the agreement reached with Russia on this matter. It must not be forgotten that Ukraine’s NATO membership may trigger a nuclear war, and that Turkey is still hosting the US’s atomic weapons in the İncirlik Base. Most crucially, it is evident that NATO had taken part in the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, and that the National Assembly building was bombed by F-16s, getting their fuel from planes flying from the İncirlik Base. All this makes Turkey complicit in NATO’s unjust and aggressive war and brings the toiling people of Turkey face to face with gravest dangers.
Erdoğan’s servile attitude towards NATO is consistent with the overall political line of the AKP, Erdoğan’s part, which carries the mark of servitude to imperialism in its very foundation. Nonetheless, the fiscal yoke that Turkey finds itself under, in conditions of complete depletion of exchange reserves and a gigantic swamp of foreign debt, should not be overlooked either. The items concerning Turkey’s Customs Union and European Union memberships are extensions of this fiscal yoke. In the late 19th century, during the reign of Abdulhamid II, the Ottoman Empire was stuck in a similar swamp of debt and thus became a semi-colony by surrendering the state’s privilege to collect taxes to English, French, Dutch, Austrian, and Italian governments and companies under the institutional framework of the Public Debt Administration (Düyun-u Umumiye). Today, the inevitable result of a foreign exchange-addicted economy and the huge swamp of debt is for Turkey to fall into indentured servitude towards the dollar-issuing Washington and the Euro-issuing Frankfurt. There is no question that London is also at the table with its proxies in the Gulf. The Vilnius Summit is not only rendering Turkey a front in the imperialist war, it is also establishing the 21st-century version of the Public Debt Administration.
The interests of the toiling people of Turkey lie in the refusal of foreign debt, exiting the Customs Union, ending the process of candidate membership with the EU, establishing state monopoly over foreign trade, and ending foreign exchange addiction based on state ownership and planning. The safety and security of the toiling people of Turkey lie in exiting NATO! That Turkey should be complicit in the war against Russia that NATO is waging in Ukraine through its Nazi proxies is unacceptable. The place of the toiling people of Turkey is the ranks of anti-imperialism, together with all the peoples of the world. The main enemy of the peoples of the world, the imperialist war apparatus, and the biggest terror organization, NATO, should be smashed!
No to NATO expansion!
No to being complicit in NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine!
No to a new Public Debt Administration!
End imperialism’s military and fiscal yoke!
Let us break the imperialist chains!
Exit NATO! Destroy NATO!
The Politburo of Revolutionary Workers Party (DIP)