While Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was visiting the White House last week, members of his country’s diplomatic-security team brutally attacked a group of peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington. To add insult to injury, Ankara responded by summoning the American ambassador to complain of the “aggressive and unprofessional” intervention by the DC police. Rich Lowry comments:
This incident, which injured eleven, is not the most consequential event in the world. It’s not the Syrian war, or a North Korean missile test. We have large national interests at stake with Turkey, especially in navigating the complex currents in the Syria civil war. But it’s not nothing, either. It deserves more than State Department statements of “concern.” Especially given the context. The guards didn’t lash out on their own. They charged under the watchful eye of President Erdogan, who was sitting in a black Mercedes-Benz and emerged to observe the assault. Some media reports contend, based on close analysis, that Erdogan himself may have given the order for the attack.
This is a second offense for the Turks. A year ago, they beat up protesters and disfavored journalists outside an Erdogan talk at the Brookings Institution in Washington. . . .
Not only did the Turks carry out this attack, they are thumbing their noses at us by summoning our ambassador over it. The Turkish goons who punched and kicked people should be identified and charged with crimes. They are beyond our reach, either because they are back in Turkey or have diplomatic immunity. But we should ask for them to be returned and for their immunity to be waived. When these requests are inevitably refused, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. (heard saying during the incident, “You cannot touch us”) should be expelled. Erdogan is crushing his opponents with impunity in Turkey. Reacting firmly to this attack at least will send the message, “Not in our house.”
Read more on National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447860/president-erdogan-protesters-dc-us-must-send-message