NATO's 32 member leaders are set to meet in Ankara on July 7 and 8, and according to Western and Turkish diplomats invol...

NATO's 32 member leaders are set to meet in Ankara on July 7 and 8, and according to Western and Turkish diplomats involved in planning the summit, none of them are expected to publicly criticize Turkey's crackdown on its main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP). That includes the imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan's primary political rival and the CHP's presidential candidate, who remains behind bars. Reuters, citing current and former diplomats, reports that the West has largely gone silent on Turkey's human rights record since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, choosing instead to deepen security ties with NATO's second-largest military and a top exporter of attack drones. Dozens of elected CHP officials and party members have been jailed over the past two years, and the party's leader has been removed from his post in what the CHP calls a judicial coup. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara David Satterfield, one of the ten Western ambassadors Erdogan ordered expelled in 2021 after they demanded the release of jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala, told Reuters that staying silent is not a neutral act. He said Turkey's democratic decline is not irreversible, and that it matters for Turks to hear other governments speak about their system. Kavala himself has now been imprisoned for nearly nine years, serving a life sentence for an alleged government overthrow attempt he denies. The European Court of Human Rights ruled he must be freed, citing insufficient evidence and finding that his detention was designed to silence him. Erdogan's office and NATO have both declined to comment substantively on the matter. The Ankara summit will mark Trump's first visit to Turkey as president. He is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Erdogan, whom he regularly calls a friend. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said deals worth tens of billions of dollars will be announced at the summit. #NATO #Turkey #Imamoglu