Turkey Abusing Asylum-Seekers: Implications for E.U. Statehood

Over 90% of Turkey is not located in Europe, and yet for years the sovereign state has sought accession in the E.U. in spite of Turkey’s non-European culture. That the E.U. did not act in a timely way on Turkey’s application can be taken as a de facto “no.” Reports of abuse of political-asylum seekers in E.U.-funded centers in Turkey may suggest that the country’s government has interpreted the delay as a “no,” or that the country is unintentionally thwarting its own chances on becoming a state in the union. The E.U. was hardly blameless, as the Commission casted off any responsibility for enabling the abuse by funding the centers where it was occurring.

In 2024, “Lighthouse Reports found systematic mistreatment across the removal centres managed by the Turkish government and backed by €213 million in E.U. funds.”[1] The investigation reported, The E.U. “is aware that it is funding this abusive system, with its own staff raising alarm about it internally—yet senior officials choose to turn a blind eye.”[2] Even though the E.U. had provided almost €10 billion to support the operation of the centres, the European Commission replied, “It is the responsibility of the Turkish authorities to thoroughly investigate allegations of wrongdoing and we urge them to do so.”[3] Absent was any recognition that funding the centres renders the E.U. responsible for the ongoing abuse too. Pointing to someone else to take responsibility for “unsanitary and overcrowded conditions in the facilities, instances of abuse and torture against migrants, and a patter of coercion to force detainees to sign documents of ‘voluntary’ returns to their war-torn nations” is too convenient to be ethically sound.[4]

The Commission’s claim that “all E.U. money provided for managing removal centres and voluntary returns in Turkey was ‘in full respect of E.U. and international standards” implies that the E.U. had a responsibility to see that the standards were being met.[5] “The E.U. executive [branch], however, insisted the ultimate responsibility to probe and crack down on violations of fundamental rights was up to the Turkish authorities.”[6] In short, the E.U. was trying to have it both ways. That Turkey had “its own set of legislation when it comes to recognition of refugees and migration management” does not mean that “the enforcement and protection of these formal rights remain the responsibility” of Turkey, even though a Commission spokesperson said that the responsibility follows from the legislation.[7]

That the E.U. was funding refugee centres outside of the E.U. suggests that the E.U. had done an insufficient job in handling asylum-seekers within the borders of the E.U.; essentially, the union was outsourcing its responsibility to protect its borders. That some E.U. states had recently violated the Shengen Agreement by setting up land-border check-points, to which residents in other states would be subject, also implies that federal action was insufficient. The insufficiency thus caused a weakening of the union’s rule of law, as state governments felt free to violate the Agreement.

Turkey was also working at cross-purposes with itself. If the Turkish government had any desire remaining for statehood in the E.U., using E.U. funds to violate international human rights, which the E.U. ostensibly values and works in support of, adds support to the argument that Turkey’s culture is too different to fit within a European union. Given internal threats by state governments to the E.U.’s decision-making process and rule of law, the union could ill-afford a leap in the magnitude of interstate differences in (political) culture. The continuance of the principle of unanimity applying to a significant number of federal competencies (i.e., enumerated domains of authority for E.U. law and regulations) was already running up against the recalcitrant will of Viktor Orbán of the E.U. state of Hungary. At the very least, that principle would need to be retired were Turkey to accede, which ironically would take unanimity to be changed to qualified majority voting on all matters at the federal level. In short, Turkey needed to get all of its ducks in a row, rather than to work against itself.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Brussels Urges Turkey to ‘Thoroughly’ Probe Alleged Abuse in EU-Funded Migration Centres,” Euronews.com, October 11, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

Turkey on Cyprus: Sidelining the E.U.

Imagine if Japan had invaded and claimed (and successfully held) an island of Hawaii as a protectorate and a separate country due to the number of Japanese living there, and thus not as a part of Hawaii even though the U.S. recognizes all of Hawaii as a member state.  Let’s say furthermore that the UN has proposed the unification of Hawaii as a republic composed of two federated states. Hawaii would be akin to Belgium in the E.U.—a federated state of two sub-states in a federal union. This arrangement would fit with Althusius’ early seventeenth-century theory of federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire: each level of political organization is a federation. While this exists in the E.U., none of the U.S. states is itself a federation of states. So, the UN’s proposal that Cyprus be united politically and be composed of two states even as the E.U. already recognizes the entire island as an E.U. state is not outlandish to a European eye. The problem with the proposal lies instead in Turkey, and this in itself can be interpreted as an argument against Turkey’s accession to E.U. statehood.

“Speaking at an event in the north [part of the island in 2024] to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Turkish invasion that [had] split the island along ethnic lines, [Turkey’s President] Erdogan ruled out resuming talks based on the Annan Plan which proposed the establishment of a United Republic of Cyprus.”[1] In rejecting the proposal, he was ignoring the fact that the E.U. recognized the entire island of Cyprus as a state in that union. He was thus unwittingly undermining the E.U. even as Turkey was still technically seeking statehood. I submit that this undermines Turkey’s chances of accession, and furthermore, that Turkey should not become a state. For at the very least, an aspiring state should respect the E.U., even and especially on matters that touch on that potential state. The case of the E.U. state of Hungary being found in wanton violation of E.U. law by the E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, demonstrates just how harmful a disrespectful state government can be within a federal union.

Erdogan’s establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is only recognized by Turkey’s government and was rejected in a 2004 referendum by more than 75% of the Greek Cypriots in the south, would, if accepted by the E.U., limit the E.U.’s common market to the south and thus create the need for customs checkpoints inside the island. While not as complicated as the case of Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. and yet also part of the Irish island—Ireland being an E.U. state—politically splitting the island of Cyprus permanently would make things more difficult for the E.U. with respect to its state of Cyprus in the south. Again, it would be a case of Turkey making things more difficult for the E.U., and yet presumably also wanting to become a state to enjoy the economic advantages of the union’s unfettered interstate commerce. This combo must surely strike Europeans as unsavory and thus as a de facto argument against Turkey joining the union. In other words, the way Erdogan was playing his hand politically with respect to Cyprus showed the Europeans that they had been right to hold off on accession talks with Turkey because its government would not make a very good state government in the union. Already Hungary was enough of a problem. That 90% of Turkey is not in Europe and the culture is not European may be what is behind not only the tension in Cyprus, but also why Turkey would be a problematic state in the European Union.

Lastly, Erdogan’s insistence on a “two state” solution for Cyprus, as if the difference between the north and south were as great as those between the Palestinians and Israelis in Israel, discounts or even perhaps dismisses the mollifying effect that Cyprus being a state in a union would have on the tensions on the island, and thus shows a lack of confidence in the E.U. in its mission to forestall war in Europe. In other words, the president of Turkey didn’t seem to have much faith in the federal institutions, including the E.U.’s court of justice, to protect minorities within the union and assuage tensions domestically, by which I mean within the union. Just as the rationale of the U.S. as a federal union of dual sovereignty was in part to use federal power to step in to stop Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, so too the E.U. has the means at its federal level mediate any excitements within the state of Cyprus. Yet Erdogan did not seem to trust Brussels enough to recognize the entire island of Cyprus as an E.U. state.

Brussels already had Viktor Orbán of Hungary distrusting the federal institutions in 2024 and actively working at odds with E.U. foreign policy on Russia even as he held the presidency of the Council of the E.U. during the last six months of 2024. Taking note of the 50^th anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus then, Brussels could have done worse than formally end Turkey’s proposed accession. A house divided cannot long stand, or at least cannot prosper and thrive as it could otherwise. With Russia belligerently knocking down Ukraine, Europeans could surely have benefitted at the time from a basic or fundamental unity that at the very least includes respect for and confidence in the European Union, given its rationale bearing on protecting Europe from war within.

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1. “Erdogan Dismisses UN Plan for Federated Cyprus, Reaffirms Commitment to Two-State Peace Deal,” Euronews, July 21, 2024.

Turkey’s President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues

The European Union is not a military alliance, like NATO or the ancient Spartan League. Nor is the E.U. merely a free-trade agreement like NAFTA. In terms of the history of federalism, the E.U. instantiates “modern federalism,” wherein governmental sovereignty is split between federal and state levels, rather than confederalism, wherein all such sovereignty is retained by the states. Both the U.S. and E.U. instantiate modern federal systems, although ironically the U.S. was originally a confederal system of sovereign states. In likening the E.U. to NATA in 2023, President Erdogan of Turkey unwittingly committed a category mistake. This in turn weakened his attempt to leverage his power in approving Sweden as a country in NATO with his demand that the E.U. admit Turkey as a state.

Just prior to the NATO meeting in June, 2023, Erdogan stated at a news conference, “First, let’s clear Turkey’s way in the European Union, then let’s clear the way for Sweden, just as we paved the way for Finland.”[1] Becoming a state in a political union, whether it is the U.S. or E.U., is qualitatively different than joining a military alliance. Joining the latter does not involve a transfer of some governmental sovereignty to a federal executive branch (e.g., the E.U. Commission), legislative branch (e.g., the Council of the E.U. and the E.U. Parliament), and judicial branch (e.g., the European Court of Justice). A state in such a federal system is qualitatively different than a country being in a military alliance because an alliance itself has no governmental institutions and sovereignty.

To characterize a state in a union and a country in a military alliance both as “member states” is misleading. In fact, efforts to do so may stem from an ideological “state’s rights” (or Euroskeptic) effort to deny that the E.U. is in fact an instance of modern federalism rather than confederalism. In remarking that “almost all NATO member countries are European member countries,” Erdogan unwittingly fell into the trap of the ideologues who refuse to recognize that the E.U. and U.S. fall within the same genre of unions of states (i.e., modern federalism rather than confederalism).[2] Because the term country implies full sovereignty, both E.U. and U.S. members are states in the sense of being semi-sovereign political units in a federal system. The U.S. states are members of the U.S., because they joined the U.S. from being formerly sovereign countries (or assumed to have been of such status) and the members of the U.S. Senate, which is based on international rather than national law. The Council of the E.U. is also founded on international principles, wherein political units rather than citizens are the members.

It follows that the countries that are members of UNESCO, the UN, and other international organizations are not states thereof, and should not be referred to as member states. To do so in an attempt to imply that the E.U., unlike the U.S., is also an international organization flies in the face of the very existence of the E.U. Commission, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. International organizations do not have legislatures and high courts and executive branches to implement law and federal judicial rulings. That the Euroskeptic ideology denies this just shows the downside of ideology in general as being intellectually dishonest as regards empirical facts. To want to remake things as they presently are is one thing; to claim or insinuate that things are already different than they are is quite another. I contend that the Turkish president fell into the trap laid by the intellectually dishonest ideologues in Europe.

1. Hande A. Alam and Christian Edwards, “Erdogan Links Sweden’s NATO Bid to Turkey Joining the EU,” CNN.com, July 10, 2023.
2. Ibid.

The U.S. Enabled Turkey to Invade Syria: Absent the U.N.

Turkey invaded Syria on October 9, 2019 “to flush Kurds allied with the US out of northeastern Syria.”[1] Strategically, Turkey wanted to distance the Kurds from Turkey so they could not aid Kurdish separatists in Turkey should the latter rise up in attempting to establish Kurdistan. U.S. President Don Trump, who had just cleared American troops from northeastern Syria, had advanced knowledge from Turkish President Recep Erdogan that he planned to invade the area once the American troops were out. A rare bipartisan unity in Congress criticized the removal of American troops and the president’s acquiescence on Turkey’s plan to attach the Kurds, an American ally—a plan that could possibly give ISIS a toehold in the region. Both the Congress and the president had their respective rationales, yet neither side looked past the apparent dichotomy to arrive at a solution consistent with the points made by both sides.

Backing up the arguments made by the bipartisan critics in Congress, “Pentagon and State Department officials had advised Trump against making the move, arguing a US presence is needed to counter ISIS and keep Iran and Russia, both influential inside Syria, in check.”[2] Rep. Ro Khanna asked why the president would not at least have asked for a concession from Turkey. That the U.S. was turning its back on “allies who [had] died fighting for a US cause” was also objectionable.[3] Certainly some erosion of trust could be expected. Help the Americans on one of their causes and the next administration may turn on you anyway. To put friends in harm’s way and disavow any responsibility that goes with having received help points to a deep character flaw. While less obvious than is the mentality in preemptively invading another state, the U.S. President’s treatment of the Kurds was also culpable (and the U.S. Government had also preemptively invaded another state—Iraq).

President Trump’s rationale stemmed from his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the long, senseless war that ensued. He pointed, moreover, to the eight trillion dollars spent by the U.S. and all the dead and wounded American soldiers “fighting and policing in the Middle East.”[4] He had campaigned on getting out of such long, senseless wars whose benefits to the U.S. do not justify the costs in lives and money. His solution in gradually pulling out American forces involved leaving a power-void that could be exploited or filled by adversaries. For example, ISIS could establish more of a presence in northeastern Syria under Turkish occupation. The Syrian Democratic Forces wrote that they were suspending military operations against ISIS in northern Syria following the “Turkish aggression.”[5]

I submit that both the concerns of the Congressional critics and President Trump could have been obviated had the U.S., a major financial contributor to the United Nations, sponsored a resolution in the Security Council for U.N. peacekeeping troops to replace the American forces in northeastern Syria. A contingent coalition could have been put together should Turkey have invaded anyway. American geopolitical interests would have favored a peace-keeping force over a force that could enable the spread of ISIS (like Turkey).

In general terms, the more the world organization of countries can step into troubled areas in peace-keeping roles, the less the world will have to rely on self-interested large countries, such as the U.S., to act as a global policeman. A conflict of interest exists in having one of the state-actors to be such a policeman because the temptation will be to put the state-actor’s own strategic interests above peace-keeping. I contend elsewhere that even if the state does not indulge such a temptation, the conflict-of-interest arrangement, which includes such temptation, is inherently unethical because of the existence of the temptation, given human nature.[6] In northeastern Syria, the U.S. was oriented to rooting out (and preventing) ISIS more than keeping the peace. Even if the official American objective had been peace-keeping, the U.S. would have been tempted to attack new ISIS outposts. Especially in political realism (but also in neorealism), to assume that a state would not act in its own strategic interests is naive. 

Had the U.S. pursued the U.N. option, the tension between the Congressional critics and the administration could have been avoided. This type of problem-resolution—a third way—is particularly beneficial in cases in which both sides to a dispute have good points. I suspect the human mind, whether from nature or nurture, goes to either-or dichotomies too readily. The back-and-forth in a debate is supposed to come to the better answer, but what if a third is even better?

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[1] Nicole Gaouette, “Republican Anger at Trump Grows as Turkey Launches ‘Sickening’ Attack on US Allies,” CNN.com, October 9, 2019 (accessed same day).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Skip Worden, Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon. 

The Turkish President’s Men Attack Americans on American Soil : An Outlandish Presumptuousness at Odds with Human Rights

It is one thing to read about human-rights violations going on in another country; it is quite another to see such a country’s president’s men attacking people of another country in their own country. Besides the added perspective that such an act gives to people in that country, the mentality itself is made transparent in terms of its sheer presumptuousness. In other words, the presumptuousness that may be viewed as latent in a human-rights violation inflicted by government officials and their respective employees on their own soil is made particularly transparent, or obvious, when the violation is against foreigners on their own soil.

In May, 2017, 24 men, including armed employees of President Recep Erdogan’s security detail, attacked protesters, many of whom were American citizens, in Washington. Sitting in a car, Erdogan “conferred with Muhsin Kose, his head of security, who leaned into the car’s rear door.”[1] After speaking with Erdogan, Kose “talked into his earpiece, and three security personnel who were guarding the president’s car hurried toward the protest. The brawl began moments later, and one of these men . . . appeared on video punching and kicking people.”[2] That is, a few seconds after Kose spoke into his earpiece, the men charged the protesters, kicking and hitting them. Kose talked with his president as the Turkish security men attacked the Americans. “One man knocked two women to the ground, and another man repeatedly punched Lucy Usoyan, a protester, as she lay on the ground. The third man kicked  ]Sayid Yasa] after he was thrown to the ground moments earlier.”[3] It is the lack of any violent trigger that is particularly noteworthy.

I submit that the intent to punch and kick people who had not themselves been violent points to a desire to inflict pain for its own sake. The sadistic mentality loses the cover of “government security” legitimacy when no inciting violence can provide a trigger. Instead, the trigger is in the psychology shared by the 24 men who initiated the violence. One implication is that government officials and their employees who respectively order and commit human-rights violations against their own people suffer from mental illness rather than being merely politically partisan.

The presumptuousness in instigating violent acts without a violent trigger is particularly evident in the sheer gall in attacking the American citizens in their own country rather than in Turkey. It is amazing how difficult presumptuousness can be to detect when it is so engrained in a person’s status quo. The secular humanist, for instance, who takes pride of convenience in having the title, Rev., and being the “minister” of a church or even a religious society can be said to act presumptuously in tacitly turning down (i.e., not welcoming) potential religious or spiritual members. Once such a church or religious society strangely eschews anything not in keeping with secularity, the implicit presumptuousness can be difficult to discern.

The presumptuousness of the Turks in Washington, D.C. goes beyond a lack of respect for American criminal law and the U.S. Constitution, which protects political protest. The underlying attitude would fall under the radar in Turkey, where government is not expected to protect and advance the cause of human rights. In the United States, however, the offending attitude was obvious. It can be likened to a house-guest who not only does not clean up his mess, but also hits the host’s friends after getting a call from his boss from work to do so. The mentality goes beyond rudeness and even disrespect to even being pathological. The host would be totally justified in not only kicking out the offensive guest, but also calling the police to report the violence.

So it is telling, on the American side, that the D.C. police did not stop the aggressive foreigners—even if they had diplomatic immunity they could have been stopped and even detained, yet only two people were arrested—one from New York City. In fact, video shows a D.C. police agent clubbing a protester!  

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department merely voiced concern over “the violent incidents involving protesters and Turkish security personnel.”[4] It is significant, I contend, that the American president did not show Erdogan and his employees the proverbial door. Such betrayal of the American citizens, even implicitly in just voicing concern, must certainly have felt to the protesters like insult added to injury. In fact, the abject failure of the local police and the U.S. Government to go after the Turkish criminals on behalf of the American protesters implies tacit approval or even likeness to the pathology and political authoritarianism—suggesting that risks to human-rights exist in the U.S. rather than just in other countries. The sin of omission, in other words, can shed light on a sordid mentality or attitude.

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[1] Malachy Browne, Christ Cirillo, Troy Griggs, Josh Keller, and Natalie Reneau, “Did the Turkish President’s Security Detail Attack Protesters in Washington? What the Video Shows,” The New York Times, May 26, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Max Jaeger, “State Dept. Condemns Turkish Security’s Bloody Attack on Protesters,” New York Post, May 17, 2017.